The Final Journey
by Skalathrax
Summary: A continuation of my other Story, A Gamer's Journey. Follows the activity of X-COM's activities after the Commander is rescued. Nothing is as straightforward as it was before. New enemies, new allies and old allies. A new war, the final journey. Earth will be taken back, but the cost to do so has yet to be determined. Rated M for language, gore, and hints at adult scenes. Enjoy.
1. Prologue

**This is kind of a preface to the story, some notes, and things. The first actual chapter should be uploaded within a day or 2 (barring any technical or mod difficulties). And following parts should be one every week or 2 (and if I miss a week I'll put up some more quickly afterward if possible).**

 **I decided to stick with my Journey vibe for titles since the only other names I could think of were things like, Taking Earth Back, and a bit cliche, and probably already have storied with those titles on this site.**

* * *

 **DLC:**

I'll be playing with all of the DLC now. I was originally going to not do the Alien Hunters, but i like the weapons it gives and from what I've read it tells you when you're going to encounter them, or you can just not start the mission that activates them until later, so I'll be able to manage their instant-kill stuff.

And the Tactical Legacy Pack was released just before I was about to start the first chapter, so the stuff from that'll be included. Just the items and the like, not the actual missions. Probably a Chapter of Bradford telling the tale to someone.

* * *

 **Mods:**

I've also got some mods, mostly Cosmetic and UI things, but there's a few that change gameplay, so I'll pop them here so it's not really confusing to someone who's only played Vanilla:

First thing is WOTC Even More Backstories. Not any gameplay effects, but i really recommend this mod, adds a ton more backstories to the random generator, all really good, and some are just absolutely amazing. If you like to give your guys personalities, grab this mod.

Fair Lost Targeting. This just makes the Lost target the closest creature to them, so they'll attack ADVENT as often as XCOM. Makes it a bit easier, but it kind of kills immersion to see a Lost run past a dozen ADVENT soldiers to chase down 1 XCOM guy on the other side of the map.

Simple True Concealment. Mission timers don't count down while the squads in concealment (entire squad) but reduces the turns a bit to compensate. Since if ADVENT don't know we're there, they're not going to be in as much of a hurry to do their thing.

Grimy's Loot Mod. Changes up the loot stuff, just generally makes loot better.

Ballistic Shields. Lets you swap your primary weapon for a Shield, i really like the shields, and it's mostly just for one character.

XCOM 2 RPG Overhaul. Which removes specific classes, instead letting you pretty much select any skill from any tier to build you guys how you want them. It also re-does most of the weapons, changing ammo amounts and giving abilities for specific weapons.

The rest are map packs, Cosmetics, Quality of Life, and UI things.

* * *

 **Characters:**

Most of the characters in this'll be made by me, but some specific ones (Bradford, Tygan, Shen, Dragunova, and Mox) are from the game, some things will be describing cut-scenes or recorded dialogue, but a lot will be me interpreting their characters from what I've seen from them, so apologies if i end up going a different direction with some characters than what you thought.

A lot of how i do the characters will depend on what happens in the game, how i end up using them in the fights, things i'v e seen them doing on the Avenger, and who they happen to form bonds with.

Once all of the starting characters have leveled up to get their classes (and so have the right weapons available), i'll be putting up a poster from the game's poster-maker thing just to show what all the characters look like properly for if you need a refresher on what they look like.

* * *

 **Story Stuff:**

I don't have a ton planned for the characters to start with, a lot will develop during the game, though i do have a few bits already planned, a lot will just happen as things happen in the game.

In this story, some things in cutscenes will be slightly different, just little details that i prefer to how it is in the cutscene. Mostly slight differences that won't really affect the story.

Any deaths or injuries will just be based on what happens in the battles. I'm playing on Hard, but no Ironman, since i have mods, and crashing, glitches and misclicks happen. But if i mess up and someone dies, that's on me or RNGesus.

This is a continuation of my other story, A Gamer's Journey, which was originally continued in A New Journey, but my save for it was accidentally deleted, and WOTC adds more narrative stuff

It'll be set up like A New Journey. Coming from the perspective of multiple characters rather than just one. To give more details to more characters, and show more interactions among them. I probably won't go from the perspective of any XCOM original characters, but i might end up doing so if the situation calls for it, in which case, i'd like to apologise in advance if i ruin your favourite character.


	2. The Meetings

**Welcome. If you're new to my stories, I'd recommend you go and read A Gamer's Journey, since a few of the character from that will be appearing and there will be references to some things that might not make sense if you haven't read it, but there shouldn't be anything that you'll be completely lost on. Obviously, if you haven't played or seen XCOM then there will be some things that won't make complete sense, but I should clarify things enough that you'll be able to get the gist of it.**

 **These bold texts at the top and/or bottom of the chapters will be on most parts and are essentially author notes, just things I'll be saying about things going on. You can skip these bits if you want, there won't be anything about the story in them aside from mentions of schedules, which are pretty unreliable as I tend to procrastinate things.**

 **There may be some things that you won't agree with or like. I can't disclose everything that will be in here, as most things in the story will develop as I go through the game, but there's nothing that is intended to cause offense or annoy anyone, but things like Homosexual characters, a couple mental illness mentions, injuries, death, etc.**

 **If you have any comments or constructive criticisms (or praise), feel free to do so.**

 **That's all I can think of that I should do here, so I'll shut up and let you get to the story.**

* * *

 **Aya woke** up and got out of her bed. Stepping over to the bathroom and relieving herself before looking into the mirror and wiping the sleep out of her eyes. She looked at herself, as she had done most mornings for... how long has it been? At least a decade, maybe 2? She never bothered to keep track of the days, and calendars aren't exactly common anymore. Her eyes had been green once, but now, they were orange. Still normal in every other way, but the irises were orange. Stark and noticeable even from a distance. She was never one to care about her looks though, especially in the conditions she's been in for the past however long, as evidenced by the burn scar covering the left side of her face, she could have had skin graphs to cover it up and make her face the same as new, but she hadn't gotten them, since the surgery would have kept her out of the fight for a few weeks longer. Her black hair was also a mess, shoulder-length and sheared off roughly by a knife rather than cut by scissors. She headed out of her room and continued on with her routine, checking the defenses and trap around the run-down military base she'd taken up residence in some time ago. She rarely found anything, but there had been the occasional Sectoid or Lost that had come to the area and she'd had to deal with.  
After making sure nothing had tried to get in during the night, she went to check on her supplies. Armour, Weapons, Ammunition, great stock. More than she could use in her lifetime. Water, okay, she'd need to make a run soon, but there was enough for a few days. Food, low, down to just the last few bits of jerky. Food was what she needed to make a run for today.

She entered her armory and grabbed her gear. An armored jacket, light enough to allow her to move around as if unarmoured, but protective enough to block a glancing blow from an ADVENT Rifle if they ever managed to land a shot, she'd scavenged this off the corpse of a Reaper who had been caught out and overrun by Lost, she'd arrived at the area only minutes after death, if only the Reaper's would make noise she could have saved her. A combat knife, equally good at skinning creatures as it was at spearing a heart, found in the back of a Berserker she'd taken down some months ago, she had no clue who put it there, but she doubted they were still around to miss the knife. And, finally, her shotgun. This she had had for a long time. Since her days at XCOM. Despite its age, it had never jammed. She took good care of this shotgun. She had never been a superstitious or emotional person, so she didn't consider it a lucky charm, nor did she name the gun, but she did like the weapon, and never left her base without it.

Before heading out, she checked her defenses one last time, she hadn't survived so long by being careless. After this final check, she went to her vehicle storage, and, after ensuring it had a full tank, got on the bike and began driving out. She knew where to go for food.

* * *

 **Aya hid** her bike in the usual place and started jogging into the ruined city on foot. Knife in hand she headed for the area she knew she could find her food. She encountered a few lost, quickly dispatching of them with her knife, a simple stab to the temple put them down, and made no sound to draw more Lost.

As she got closer to her destination, she slowed down. Lost were thicker in this part of the city, and ADVENT patrols came through her often, there was also the occasional Reaper squad, and she wouldn't want to be mistaken for a Lost. She got to a T-junction, with a construction site on 1 side. Things were wrong here. First, she saw dozens of dead Lost. Not too uncommon, since ADVENT, Reapers, or even Skirmishers would occasionally clear them out. She moved closer to get a better look, switching to her shotgun in case ADVENT were nearby. She came to the junction and looked right, seeing the remains of an ADVENT tanker and many blown open corpses. She was no Forensic Investigator, but she'd seen enough corpses to know they were killed by an explosion, the Tanker had detonated.

She looked into the construction site and saw big mounds of dead Lost. Not a single one killed by an Explosion or fire. So not ADVENT. Some had multiple holes in chests, arms and/or legs. So not Reaper's then, they couldn't manage that kind of volume of fire without shooting the corpses, but that'd be a waste of ammo, which the Reaper's don't do. Perhaps Skirmisher's then. She also saw a couple Purifier's further past it, their tanks had exploded. Likely Skirmishers then, it was rare, but a couple of them sometimes went through cities, though this was close to Reaper territory, so they would have needed a good reason to come here. The kills were fresh, still cooling, and there was still soot from the explosions. This happened recently then, less than an hour ago she'd guess. She saw some more Lost corpses down the road. If there'd been explosions, the Lost would have followed the Skirmishers. The ADVENT convoy had been destroyed, so she wouldn't be getting any supplies from them, but the Skirmishers might have something. So she decided to follow the trail of corpses.

* * *

 **The 2** women dropped from the Skyranger, Savvina Tombras acting as the leader taking the lead, dark-skinned, with her black hair tied in a ponytail. She led the way, carrying an LMG. The weapon relatively new to her, she was still getting used to the increased weight, slowing her down as she lugged the gun and its ammunition supply, but she appreciated the power of the weapon.

Andrea Sandoval dropped down after her, dark-skinned as well, with brown hair cut in a bob framing her face, a very attractive woman, her piercing green eyes practically sparkling as she looked around. Even in this ruined city, she had a slight smile on her face. In contrast to the other woman, her only weapons were a pair of pistols and an Uzi Sub-machine gun. The pistols in her hands were experimental, crafted by the Chief Engineer Dr. Shen, instead of bullets, the weapons acquire ammunition from shaving off flakes from a block of metal within the chamber, giving it practically unlimited ammo.

They noticed a small campfire with the bug-like head on a spit, the head was roughly the size of a human's, and was still dripping greenish blood. Approaching it carefully they kept their weapons at the ready. They didn't know a lot about this location, it was a city before the war, now just ruins, they were supposed to meet someone here, codenamed 'Outrider', one of the Reaper Faction. The city was supposed to be abandoned, scans had shown no living creatures in it before the Reapers moved in for the meeting, but there were mummified corpses scattered around. Savvina approached the campfire, looking at the strange head on the spit.

"If you are hungry, there is more where that came from". Both soldiers pointed their weapons towards the voice, and saw a female figure in the black armored jackets of the Reapers, with a hood and face covered by a mask. Seeing them pointing their weapons at her, the figure said "Impressive reflexes, but unnecessary" she reached up and removed the mask, revealing her face.

"It's cool, we're all friends here," Andrea said, holstering her pistols. Savvina nodded and lowered her gun.

" _You_ are safe here -" the woman, presumably Outrider stated. Dozens of other Reapers standing up from their cover. Some on ground level behind vehicles or other objects, some on rooves, all of them wearing either hoods and masks or helmets "More so than you imagine. We shall see if the same holds true for these skirmishers of yours"

As if on cue, a screech echoed around the buildings. None of the Reapers reacting to it, but the XCOM soldiers looked around for the source of the noise.

"Your presence already disturbs them. We must move quickly. My people will take care of this camp. Come" Outrider led the way down the street, the XCOM soldiers following behind.

"Who?" Andrea asked.

"Who what?" Outrider didn't even look back as she stalked ahead

"Who's disturbed by our presence"

"The Lost. People who have been ruined by this place. They are no longer human, chasing after anything that moves and trying to kill it. If we don't move quickly they will surround us."

"Alright. Come on Savvina" Both XCOM soldiers hurried to keep up with the Reaper.

"In that building. Deal with them and follow me. We will take the high ground to avoid most of the Lost" Outrider stated, moving ahead at speed, heading for a fire escape up ahead "I will keep you informed of their locations"

In the bottom of what used to be a cafe was a half dozen or so humanoid creatures, green-skinned, wearing the tattered remnants of clothing, their skin pocked and cracked, and their eyes glowing yellow.

"This is why I have the big gun" Savvina announced, leveling her LMG, and firing as she walks, firing in short bursts, quickly mowing down 'The Lost'. One shuffled around the edge of a Bus, Andrea putting a single shot through its head put it down. Their weapons were suppressed, sounding like doors being slammed hard, drawing some more nearby Lost, but only those within a block or 2. They quickly followed after Outrider, the LMG clearing out the Lost easily. Andrea dealing with the few that weren't part of the group. They reached the ladder and Savvina climbed up first, throwing her LMG over her shoulder where it stuck to her back with a magnetic lock. Andrea keeping the area cleared until she could follow her up.

On the other side of the room, they climbed into Outrider was crouched by the window, gesturing for them to crouch too. They moved up next to her and saw the area below had dozens of Lost wandering around aimlessly. "Clear them out quickly, then we must move before more arrive"

"Can do" Savvina announced, elbowing the window to break it and placing her LMG on the windowsill, the extra support letting her fire fully automatic. Mowing down the Lost in seconds.

"Very good, now let's move" Outrider jumped out of the window, rolling as she landed, barely making any sound. She hadn't even drawn her rifle yet.

Andrea dropped down next. Lowering herself down from the windowsill, then dropping the rest of the way, landing and rolling as well, though not as gracefully as Outrider had. She drew a pistol and killed the few Lost that had been in the lower of the building they were in, and making her way after Outrider, as Savvina also dropped down, landing heavily on her feet, the shock absorbers in the armor letting her take the fall with little more than a grunt. She jogged after Outrider, with Andrea bringing up the read, with a pistol in her hand in case any lost jump out along the way.

As they jogged Andrea smiled, and, over the coms said "I think we forgot introductions. I'm Andrea, and the quiet one's Savvina"

"Dragunova"

"Nice to meet you Dragunova"

* * *

 **The second** group was meeting with the Skirmishers. The other half of the meeting the XCOM Soldiers were overseeing.

Raul, often called 'Soldier' by the other XCOM operatives, having command. He had a weathered-looking face, black hair cut short, carrying his rifle with a confidence that showed regimented training. The others would make fun of him for how military he was, always walking bolt upright, doing military drills and keeping short-cut hair. But he didn't care, he prised himself on his military bearing and his skill was undeniable, as was his tactical ability in combat, which even the Commander recognized.

The woman with him was not military. Hiroyo Saito, often called 'Psycho' by the other operatives because of her outlandish tactics and apparent uncaringness about her own safety and pain, often continuing to fight with broken bones. Though Raul didn't appreciate her bearing, keeping her finger eternally on the trigger instead of showing proper trigger discipline, he couldn't deny her skills in combat and with explosives, and her outlandish tactics were very effective against the extremely regimented ADVENT soldiers.

As they approached the meeting point, they saw an ADVENT dropship crashed on the ground, still burning. A wall of smoke emerging from it.

"How'd that get there?" Psycho asked, bringing her shotgun up into her hands properly rather than carrying it at her side.

As they approached the smoke cloud, they heard the barking-like noise of the ADVENT language, followed quickly by gunfire, and a red-armored ADVENT soldier seemingly attempting to flee the smoke. Before either of them could get a shot off, the soldier was yanked back into the smoke. Psycho ran ahead and Raul chased after her.

Coming out of the smoke cloud they saw a figure standing over the ADVENT, wearing armor that looked similar to ADVENT style armor, but modified, he spoke too quietly for them to hear until they got close, hearing his say "Vox Tala For Ten", before driving the claws on his gauntlets into the soldiers neck. As the soldier twitched, he turned to face the XCOM Operatives, he'd removed his helmet before they exited the smoke, he was bald, with the strange facial features of an ADVENT clone, his eyes black rather than white with almost glowing yellow-orange where the iris and pupil would normally be.

"They were sent to purge the Drak-Ten, The Lost. Our meeting point is still secure" the figure said as he stood up and grabbed his helmet off of the ground

The XCOM operatives had been filled in on the Lost by Savvina before they'd reached the meeting point. "I assume you're Pratal Mox. I am Raul Marquex, and this is Hiroyo Saito"

"It is a pleasure to meet you. Now, we must go" Mox said, replacing his helmet and leading the way forwards.

They moved up to the construction site, their route leading them straight ahead. As they moved up, they noticed 2 more of the red armored ADVENT, Psycho firing a burst as they noticed each other, narrowly missing them as they moved to cover, with Mox using the grappling hook on his gauntlet to gain a Highground flank on one of the few, firing into it and killing one. Raul stood ready for the other one to emerge from its wall, while Psycho ran to get behind it. Before she could get around the truck, the ADVENT ran towards Raul, a burst from his rifle damaging the tank on it's back, a loud hissing sounding from the breach. As it got within range of its flamethrower Mox fired a few shots before Raul got a chance, igniting the gas escaping from the tank, and causing the soldier to exploded. Raul dropping down behind the crates he was behind as shrapnel was flung in all directions. He stood up and saw a chunk of red armor in the crate.

"Damn, that shit volatile," Psycho said as she kicked what remained of the corpse. Little remained of its torso.

"Could you not kick the dead bodies," Raul said as he checked his ammo count and continued moving ahead.

"Why not? He's not bothered by it? Are you Mr. Burny guy"

"We must move," Mox said, against moving forwards

"You guys are no fun" but she stopped kicking it and again followed them.

They emerged from the construction site to view what could only be described as an army. ADVENT soldiers, Sergeants, and flamer units, surrounding several tanker trucks, purging Lost from around them.

"It's an army" The voice of Central officer Bradford came over their coms, obviously watching their body cams

"One we do not have time to face" Mox stated, firing his bulpup rifle into a flamer unit next to a tanker, the gas igniting and the soldier desperately trying to get rid of the tank in the half-second before it detonates. The explosion rocked the city. The Operatives ducking behind whatever objects they were next to, to avoid the shrapnel.

"That's one day to deal with an army!" Psycho laughed

"LOST INCOMING!" Raul called, seeing the green creatures coming towards them, a horde stumbling along, with some at the front, with what looks like barnacles covering them, sprinting at full speed towards them

"Onto the crates, we need the high ground" Raul ordered performing a tactical retreat, firing on the sprinting ones as he backed up towards the large crates on the ground. Mox turned and, using his grappling hook, got onto a crate suspended by a crane. Safely out of the Lost's reach, he began firing into the horde, killing the quickest ones to give them time to reach the crate.

They climbed on top of the crate just seconds before the faster Lost reached them. They ran full force into the crates before stumbling backward and then getting ready to jump. They never got the chance as Raul began firing with disciplined bursts into the horde, and Psycho firing wildly with her shotgun.

"Central, we need a new route," Raul said into the coms

"I noticed. Give me a minute, we're working on it"

"You have your minute" Mox declared, firing onto the horde.

The regular Lost struggled to climb onto the crates, unable to get the speed of the fast ones, they were reduced to climbing on the bodies of other Lost and trying to grab the edge.

"If this lasts much longer they'll be able to walk up the pile" Psycho shouted, she seemed to be enjoying this.

"We have a new route, down the road behind you," Central said over the coms.

"Mox, give us cover, they can't reach you there" Raul ordered "Saito, come with me"

Both did so without complaint. Mox providing a steady stream of fire into the horde, giving them space to jump down the back of the crate and start pulling back up the street, Psycho clearing out the ones coming for them, while Raul shot a path in the horde for Mox to follow them, which he did.

Once back together, they ran down the path indicated by their HUD's, easily out-pacing the regular lost, and dealing with the few remaining Dashers with quick bursts.

Without the constant sound of fire, the Lost fell behind, eventually losing track of them. Once they were sure they were away from the Lost they stopped to catch their breath.

"That was close," Raul said, panting.

"Indeed," Mox said "It is amazing how many Lost still exist within this city"

"Yeah," Psycho said, "How far is the meeting point?"

"Just up the road, on that bridge," Raul said, pointing towards said bridge

"Let us move then," Mox said, continuing on.

* * *

 **The XCOM** operatives meet up in one of the broken down trains while Mox and Outrider met on the bridge.

Andrea looked at the other group "You guys look like shit, what happened"

"Mox blew up an army and brought the horde," Psych said

Savvina raised an eyebrow and looked at Raul

"Pretty much that, yeah. There was a group of ADVENT going through, apparently clearing ou the Lost. Mox shot the fuel tanker, and the entire thing exploded, then we had to fight off a horde of Lost until Central could find an alternate route, then we had to outrun the horde."

"Damn, we got like, 20 or so, but Savvina melted them"

"Well, let's hope the rest of this can go smoothly," Raul said.

As if on cue, there was a flash from the direction the meeting was taking place, followed by a voice hissing "No-one has ever done that before. No-one shall ever do it again"

They all grabbed their weapons and ran off the train.

"Vox Prima, Elder Assassin, butcher of freed ADVENT" Mox was saying

"Guess it's not going smoothly. Should have touched wood" Andrea said, jogging to the edge of the bridge.

The XCOM operatives group up along the edge of the bridge, weapons at the ready. Mox grapples across the street to the fire escape. Outrider vanishing from sight on the ground.

The same hissing voice from before seemed to emanate from everywhere at once "So many have fallen - and yet, my work is never done"

Raul began moving down the bridge "Spread out, limit the effectiveness when they de-stealth" as he said this, he noticed a slight shimmer on the air next to a car, like the haze above a fire on a cold day, it shifted slightly along the car, and Raul quickly fired a single shot into it.

There was a small spray of purple blood and the haze formed into a tall purple-skinned female creature in light armor, a sword in hand and some kind of rifle on her back. The look on her face could only be described as surprise. "Open fire!" Raul shouted, firing another burst into the creature.

All the operatives followed his order, Savvina leveling her LMG and firing at the figure, Andrea began firing both her pistols, Psycho fired a slug from her shotgun, and Mox fired his grapple.

The 'Vox Prima' stumbled backward under the hail, but no more purple blood sprayed out from the hail. Raul saw the figure stumbling backward, a hand covering the right side of her face. She noticed him looking at him, and snarled before vanishing in a flash of light.

The voice echoed around again "It was the elder's will that none survive this day, I cannot leave that to chance" one of the devices that originated from the original invasion then began emitting a loud base noise. Raul then heard the voice, as if speaking directly into his ear "And I'll be seeing _you_ again" He spun with the butt of his gun to hit the source of the noise, but passed through the area the noise seemed to come from.

"We gotta move" Savvina shouted out, pointing towards a horde of Lost stumbling and running towards them.

"Follow me" the voice of Dragunova rang out and they saw her heading for a fire escape to the top floor of a building.

Mox moved next to the fire escape, being the closest, and began providing covering fire, shooting down the fastest Lost.

The XCOM operatives dropped from the bridge and began running for the ladder as well.

Andrea reached the ladder first and started the climb. the rest reaching it shortly after and going back to back to protect the ladder. A lone Dasher managed to escape the fire and got in range to grab Mox and bite into his shoulder before Mox speared it through the head with his gauntlet blades. Orange blood was sprayed from the bite, but it didn't seem to be bleeding too much and Mox continued fighting without apparent difficulty.

"There will come a time when my people take this place back as our own" Outrider said as she continued through the building  
"If they are all like you, that is a likely possibility" Mox replied as he grappled up the fire escape.  
"Could you guys flirt later!" Savvina shouted

One by one they managed to make it up the ladder, those on top providing covering fire for those blow. Once they were all up and inside, Raul fired his Bulpup and separated the ladder from the balcony. "This way," Outrider said and continued through the building.

They followed her, Savvina bringing up the rear, reloading her LMG as they continued through the building. They came to the other side of the building, viewing the evac zone on the ground below, swarming with lost trying to find their way up. Savvina leveled her LMG on the windowsill and began spraying into the horde. Once the horde was thinned enough, they dropped down and moved towards a truck, the highest point on the ground. Mox and Outrider bringing up the rear. Outrider finally firing her rifle. The rifle gave off no sound but did make a muzzle flash.

The XCOM Operatives gathered on the top of the truck, while Mox and Outrider moved towards it on the ground, backing up while firing. "Outrider to Avenger! Where the hell's our exit!"

The Skyranger lowered out of the sky, hovering just above the truck "This is as low I can get her!" the pilot shouted into the coms.

The XCOM operatives climbed into the ship first. Savvina holding onto a handle with 1 hand, and firing her LMG into the horse with 1 hand, the end of the gun resting on the edge of a seat, firing at the left side of the horde while Outrider and Mox moved towards the avenger from the right. Outrider got onto the ship first, then turns and begins accurately firing around Mox to clear him to get onto the ship. Before Mox is able to step onto the ship he is grabbed from behind and the Vox Prima appears holding him for a split second before vanishing with him.

Outrider tried in vain to reload in time to fire, but by the time she had a new clip in, they were both gone in a flash of light. The door closed, and the Avenger rose into the air. "No" she whispered towards the area Mox was standing.

Outrider turned to Savvina, who was now slumping into a seat, her weapon smoking. "Why didn't you do something!?"

"I have an LMG! if I tried to shoot the Purple Lady I'd have put more bullets into Mox than anything else. Why didn't you shoot her, you're the one with the silent sniper"

"I was reloading!"

"Hey, guys, nows not the time. It happened to fast for any of us to stop it" Andrea said calmly. "But look, she grabbed him and teleported away. That means she wanted him alive. If she'd wanted to kill, she would have stabbed or shot him. So that means we just need to find where she took him"

* * *

 **Aya sprinted** through the building and came out onto the road, seeing the Skyranger take off just a second before she came into sight. She saw a familiar logo on its side, an elongated pentagon, with an image of earth with 3 stars above it, and a white x going across the Pentagon, and the words 'Vigilo Confido' on the top of the Pentagon.

XCOM was back.

She stood in shock for a second before remembering the Lost, and, fought her way through the horde before sprinting back the way she'd come. She easily outpaced even the Dasher. There was nothing that could keep pace with Aya when she was sprinting.

She made it back to the crossroads where she began following. She went to the destroyed convoy and found a Sergeant mostly intact.

"Guess you'll have to do," she said to herself as she used her knife to remove the breastplate from the corpse, and carved out a large chunk of meat from the chest. With no time to cook it, she ate it as she ran. She preferred Muton or Sectoid. But ADVENT meat would do.

XCOM was back. She needed to get into contact with them. But she had no radio or anything. But she knew someone who did. It had been a long time since she'd been to the Resistance cell. But now was the time.

* * *

 **The Commander** sat in his room. Everyone he met was always surprised. He has a reputation so people expect him to look a certain way. They never expect to see a clean-shaven, baby-faced man with buzz cut brown hair and blue eyes. He always enjoyed peoples reactions to seeing him. But he was more than he appeared. Perhaps the greatest tactical mind in human history. He was outwitting the best generals of the day when he was 10 years old. Undefeated in every kind of war game he'd ever touched. He was a tactical advisor at 11, and Commander of the infant XCOM programme at 15. A master of politics as well, no-one else had been able to convince every major country on earth to back the funding of XCOM, and no-one else could have managed to keep them funding XCOM until the day of the surprise attack. After the aliens were thought to be defeated, XCOM was betrayed, HQ fell, and the Commander was captured. Even the aliens recognized his abilities. Instead of killing him, they wired him in and made him the commander of his forces. With his unwilling leadership, the aliens had defeated Earth in a matter of days. With every country on earth surrendering to the aliens within a month. The Commander was rescued a few weeks ago by operated Gatecrasher. Though it cost the lives of 3 XCOM Operatives, and dozens of Resistance fighters, The Commander was back, and he'd make sure their sacrifices were worth it.

Though he was normally found looking over charts and maps, planning every move XCOM would make or assisting the Operatives on ground missions, today, he was sat on the floor of his room, sitting on a map crosslegged, appearing to be meditating.

* * *

 **3 Purple** -skinned figures appeared in a huge room, a statue of an Elder in the middle of the room. The 3 figures were very different.  
The first one to appear was sitting cross-legged, as if meditating, female, wearing very light, form-fitting armor, a sword, and rifle on her back, and a small scar on the left side of her face.  
The next one to appear did so in a crouch as if landing from a fall, 1 hand on the ground. His arm was slightly bulkier than the females, and he had a hood covering his head, and a sniper rifle on his back. He pulled the rifle out and aimed it at the female, before she vanished from sight and reappeared behind him, with her sword held to his neck.

The third figure, the tallest of the group. His armor the bulkiest, and red instead of black, but with several gaps along his arms and legs exposing the skin. The gauntlets of his armor ended in claws, with a ball of purple energy sitting in his hand. Approached them, and held his hands up in a threatening gesture.

The Sniper-wielding one raised his weapon but the female pushed it down. The figured talked, and then the sniper and clawed ones seemed to get into another argument.

The argument was interrupted at the statue of the Elder glowed purple, all 3 kneeled, the Sniper taking the longest, and clearly reluctant to do so, and doing so casually as if it was his idea to kneel rather than it being a response to the Elder.

Images played around the Elder, ADVENT subjugating humans, attacking resistance cells, but then switching to the Commanders tank, followed by the Skyranger flying away.

The Sniper looked up and rolled his eyes, saying something, before the face of the statue opened, and a red glow emitted, a torrent of purple energy landing on the Sniper and forcing him onto all fours as he was bombarded by the force. The clawed one smirking as this happens. The flood and red glow abruptly stopped, and the Sniper slowly got up and returned to kneeling. More images cycled through, a fissure in the ground, leaking purple energy, explosions, humans being killed, XCOM scientists around a tank.

The 3 figured then vanished in a flash of purple light.

* * *

 **The Commander** opened his eyes. "They fight and bicker among themselves. We can work with this. The Sniper is also the weakest link. Clearly arrogant and dislikes authority. Kept in check with threats and promises. Perhaps we could convince him to our side"

He looked up at the roof, nodding slightly to himself "It was a risk, but a calculated one, we need to know what we're fighting, and we can work with this. Now, let's work on finding Mox"

The Commander closes his eyes once more.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading this first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.**


	3. Discoveries

**Welcome back, thank you for continuing with this story of mine. A bit earlier than I said, but I've been I really into XCOM, and didn't want to get too far ahead in the game than the story. Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 **Lihong watched** the soldiers return from the mission. He'd been listening in to the chatter, so he knew what happened, nobody looked injured, so that was good, but he'd heard that one of the new guys got abducted. The new girl got off the Skyranger first. She had her mask off and hood down. Black hair in a pixie cut, brown eyes that practically sparkled with majesty, she was still wearing the armor of the Reapers, which, unfortunately, covered her body a bit too much for his taste. From a distance, it'd be hard to tell if she was even a woman, but that's not always a problem, she was attractive in a masculine way, Lihong appreciated the damsel look, but he also had a soft spot for the hardened fighter look as well.

He checked that his hair was perfectly done, black, with streaks of grey that he put in to give him the look of experience without harming his handsome features, his steel-grey eyes looked out upon all he saw, with what could only be described as delight. His eyebrows were perfectly plucked, and his clothes were the very air of sophistication and grace. Just because there was a war going on was no reason to look like a mess. He put on his face and approached the new lady, bowing to her and holding out his hand to take hers. She looked at him confusedly.

Ah, he thought, a fighter not a lover, very well, I can work with this.

Without missing a beat he recovered moving his hand back with a flourish "It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady, My name is Lihong Li, though most aboard this ship call me Chef. Might I have the honor of knowing your name as well?

She looked confused for a moment before recovering, "Elena Dragunova, codename Outrider. Now that introductions are done, could you show me to my quarters? The Commander informed me they were ready"

The other soldiers in the room cringed. They knew that inviting Lihong to your quarters was asking for trouble.

"Of course my lady. Please, follow me" He lead the woman through the Avenger. he wasn't sure which room was hers, but all the rooms were always prepared and ready in case of new recruits.

He took her on a tour of the Avenger, showing her Engineering, the Science Lab, his Bar (while it wasn't officially his bar, it was, he ran it and no-one else had the foggiest idea how to cook and serve as magnificently as he did), as well as showing her the areas under construction, before finally arriving at the barracks. He went through the common room, hearing the soldiers laugh and murmur as he passed with Elena. Taking her through the corridors, and stopping at the room adjacent to his.

"These will be your quarters for your stay on the Avenger, I'm afraid it's rather spartan at the moment, but customization is encouraged. Would you like any help moving in"

"No, I don't have very many things, thank you for the impromptu tour," She said, before stepping through the doorway.

"Should you ever need anything, a drink, some food, help with anything, don't hesitate to find me"

"Sure," she said, the door closing between them

Lihong walked away, a real smile on his face. This one would be a tough nut to crack, but Lihong did love a chase

* * *

 **The Commander** was woken up by a banging on his door. He rolled over and groggily shouted "Uh, Yeah!"

The voice of Central Officer Bradford came from the other side "We've detected a Beacon, it seems to be one used by us before the Invasion"

The Commander was awake instantly, rushing over to the door "That means Vahlen!" He shouted, flinging open the door.

Bradford was getting on in years, somewhere in his fifties (The Commander was never great at figuring out people's ages), every one of his years showed on his weathered face, but his body remained strong, he had stubble from a few days without shaving, he still kept his hair short.  
Before the Invasion, Bradford had looked a lot more innocent in his green jumper, now, he wore combat-ready clothes at all time, his shirt armored with a Kevlar weave, a combat knife sheathed on his shoulder at all time. His mind remained sharp despite his weathered look, and he remained The Commander's second in command. Bradford had even run field operations before the new X-COM had fully formed. He insists that he stopped going into the field to better run XCOM, acting as a General for XCOM, and, once the Commander had returned, as a Lieutenant, and Pilot of the Avenger (though many complained of his flying, no-one else wanted to give it a go), the real reason Bradford had stopped Field Work (though he would never admit it) was because he was getting old. A regular person might not be able to see it, but The Commander was no regular person, he could see the minuscule slowness in his walking speed, the tiny slowing of his reactions, the slight weakness in his muscles, nothing that would be noticed every day, but Bradford would notice them in combat, reacting even a fraction of a second too slow could lead to death for you or one of your team, thus, he had retired from field duty.

Bradford took a step back to avoid being hit by the door. Thankfully, the Commander had gone to sleep in his clothes that night. "Not necessarily Commander, it could be any number of Operatives, Engineers or Scientists that escaped the attack".

The Commander looked at Bradford blankly "Don't kill my hopes, Bradford. Now, let's see this beacon"

Bradford led the way to the Command Center, A big room just down the stairs from the Commander's quarters. Computer consoles lined the walls, each station manned by a scientist or Engineer, those that noticed gave the Commander a nod but most kept at their work. A hologram of the earth spun lazily in the middle of the room. A lot quieter than one would normally expect from a room like this, most kept to their work rather than talk, until something of note was found. Apparently, Bradford hadn't informed the others of the Beacon yet. He led The Commander to his console and showed him the Radar, a blip on the border of Jordan and Iraq, it was hard to say exactly which country due to the small screen, a stream of text beside it.

"I detected it half an hour ago, but I was running checks to make sure it was legit, ran it by Shen and she confirmed its one of ours"

"Anything else we can find out about it?" The Commander asked.

"It's severely decayed, which is likely why we've not picked it up before, but that's to be expected from a device over 20 years old, and in the heat of this part of the world, I'm surprised it's still active at all"

"Get a team together, I want to know what this is," The Commander said, turning to go to the Barracks to select the Operatives

"You know it's not going to be Vahlen"

The Commander turned back to him. "You said it's degraded and that's why you didn't detect it before. But you've had several years to detect it. You didn't miss it, Bradford. That Beacon was turned on recently"

"You can't be sure of that"

"No, but I can hope our best doctor is still around, and trying to find us again"

"Sir, you know what she has done, I'm not a squeamish man, but some of the things she did..."

"I know, but we need her now, more than ever. Tygan is good, don't get me wrong, and his knowledge of the inner-workings of ADVENT is invaluable, but I've not seen anyone who can hold a candle to Vahlen's talents. Her methods might be questionable, but she's extremely effective. Remember, I sought out every person who worked for us before the War. I knew of Vahlens questionable activities but decided our work was worth some questionable decisions to succeed. Tygan has done brilliantly, but he's essentially been fixing broken alien tech, Vahlen took the Alien weapons, and devised better versions, refined them. If we can get Vahlen back, this was is as good as won"

"Of course Commander" Bradford didn't sound convinced

The Commander continued on to the Barracks. He knew already who he was sending, he could send Bradford to get them, but he liked to get them himself.

* * *

 **"Do you** know where Molly is?" The Commander asked Shen, having to talk loudly to be heard over the machinery in the room.

Lily Shen turned around from working on her GREMLIN, ROV-R. She was young, somewhere in her 20's he'd Guess. Of some kind of Asian descent (He was even worse with figuring out nationalities than he was at ages), she had black hair in a bob, her face pasted in dirt and grease from her work, she wore a sleeveless vest and had a tattoo of the XCOM logo on her shoulder. The Commander had been disappointed when he met her originally, Bradford had told him Dr. Shen was working with them, and he though another person from the original XCOM was back. Unfortunately, it turned out Dr. Raymond Shen had died some years ago, but his daughter Lily Shen had taken over his position. She proved to be just as good as her father, if not better.

"Uh yeah, she's down in the training range testing out her GREMLIN," Lilly said, nodding towards the stairs.

The Commander gave off a small laugh "You made her a GREMLIN? Be careful Shen, she's going to start getting ideas"

Molly Sundqvist had been a loner gearhead when they'd found her and convinced her to join XCOM. She had taken a shining towards Lily, spending all her off-duty time in Engineering, helping Shen with whatever she needed, and had earned the nickname 'Guinea Pig' for her constant testing of Lily's experimental gear. Everyone knew Molly had a crush on Lily, even though she denied it. Bradford had been worrying she might try something, but Lily had plenty of ways to defend herself if anything like that happened and she had never expressed any discomfort about her being around her so often.

Lily just rolled her eyes and went back to her work. The Commander smiled and headed down the stairs, finding Molly standing behind the low wall marking the start of the training room, her eyes were closed, focused on directing her GREMLIN. Her hair was a lot messier than normal, just flopped on her head, she normally gelled it up into spikes.

"Hey, Molly"

She opened her eyes, the GREMLIN slowly drifting to the floor. "Yeah?"

"Got a job for you, we found a Beacon and need some people to investigate"

"Count me in"

"Great, head to the Barracks, the others will be with you in a bit"

She walked over and picked up her GREMLIN before heading back upstairs.

* * *

 **The Commander** walked into the bar, the murmur of conversation surrounding him. Lihong stood behind the bar, serving food and drinks to the others. He saw a few of the people he wanted and walked in to get them. Andrea was closest. All smiles as normal.

"The man whipped down his pants exclaiming "Look at this, still in the crate!"

There were some laughs around, not her best joke, but apparently decent.

The Commander tapped her on the shoulder. She turned "Oh, Commander, anything I can help you with?"

"We found a Beacon, you're on the retrieval team"

"Oh, alright, I'll be in the barracks in a sec"

He looked over and saw Hiroyo sitting nearby, and went over "You too, head to the barracks, got a job for you"

She put her drink down and nodded "Gotcha" before heading out the door.

He saw the final member of the group off in the corner, drawing something. Tania Ferreira, she could get pretty intense during fights, wearing a bloodstained Hockey Mask during Operations like some kind of guy from a Thriller movie. He had a glance at what she was drawing. She'd clearly started pretty reasonably, she had the outlines done but no details.

The Commander moved over to her, asking "What're you drawing?"

She didn't look up from her paper, "A scene from the mission they got back from this morning. The purple lady, some Lost, Mox, and Outrider"

"Well, I'm afraid I've got to pull you away from it"

"Why else would you be talking to me here?"

"That's fair" The Commander replied. Meet me in the barracks in a bit, I'll explain the mission when we're all together.

"Got it" she stood up, collecting her paper, and heading towards the barracks.

* * *

 **Andrea stepped** off the Avenger. The Commander had told them they were in Iraq somewhere, so she'd been expecting a blast of heat when they got off the temperature controlled Avenger. But, it was, Warm. Like, Long sleeved shirt weather. It was a touch too hot since they were in armor, but nowhere near what she'd been expecting. "Well, that's unexpected"

"What's unexpected?" Molly asked

"The weather. I thought I'd be melting"

"You know it's March right? Beginning of Spring, not summer" Tania replied through her hockey mask.

"I thought - You know what, never mind, let's find the Beacon"

Hiroyo was already walking towards the Beacon location, Shotgun in hand. The others jogged to catch up.

"A strange group we've got here" Andrea noted "Guinea pig I get, cuz tech stuff. But what about the rest of us"

"I'm here in case we need explosives" Hiroyo called behind herself to them.

"Fair, but why the Artist and the Gunslinger?" Andrea asked, meaning Tania and herself.

"The Commander's always used unorthodox tactics, I'm sure later we'll fully know the logic behind it" Tania replied.

"Fair"

After a bit of walking, they came across the location of the Beacon, finding a metal door built into the side of a cliff. Psycho took a run up to ram it. She hit it at full speed ramming her shoulder into it... and falling into the room beyond.

She picked herself up, rubbing her shoulder and coughing the dust from her lungs "I thought it'd be locked"

Andrea laughed and helped her up. "Maybe try the door handles first"

"I didn't expect it to be unlocked, he said the Beacon just came on, I figured it'd be locked to stop, you know, aliens wandering in," Psycho said, rubbing the last of the dust from her eyes.

"The lock's broken," Molly said, looking at the door "Somebody went to town on this lock with blunt force. We should be careful, whatever did this was pretty strong, and might still be inside"

"Any tracks?" Tania asked

"Not anymore," Molly said, looking to Psycho.

"Hey, my bad. I'll lead the way so I get decked first if something jumps us"

"You were going to do that anyway" Andrea replied, lightly pushing her ahead.

"True" Psycho led the way into the dark room beyond, lighting up the flashlight on her gun and scanning around.

Just a single room, no visible exits. Armored-looking crates lining the far wall. Most of them open.

Psycho approached them and saw them all empty. Inside was what looked like foam padding, a gap in them to fit an object. One, the largest crate, had the imprint of what looked like two large axes. The next biggest one had the imprint of what looks like... the baby of a rifle and a bow. Another half dozen crates had imprints of some kind of grenades

"Looks like someone beat us to it," she said, scanning the crates

"Not this one," Molly said, opening the one crate not flung open (apparently nobody locked anything anymore), reaching in and pulling out what looked like a pistol, wood handled, it looked almost like a revolver, but a lot fancier.

"Dibs" Andrea shouted, taking the pistol from Molly's hand "I'm the pistol person after all"

Molly shook her head and looked at the other crates "These had some serious locks on them. As in, we'd have needed to burn our way through it. But something broke the lock. Same kind of blunt force. Looks like someone kicked the lock off, but I don't think even a Berserker could manage that kind of force"

"Well, what the fuck got in here then?" Andrea asked

"Beats me, but I'd rather not hang around if it comes back.

The four women jogged back to the Avenger.

* * *

 **"This was** all that was in there?" The Commander said, looking at the pistol Andrea had brought back.

"There was more, but something had beaten us to it. Looked like a pair of axes, some kind of rifle-crossbow thing, and a bunch of 'nades" Andrea replied

"Strange they'd leave the pistol behind, it'd be the lightest one, easiest to add to a backpack. I'll have to look into this. In the mean-time, take this to Shen, let her have a look at it, as long as it's safe to use, you can have it"

"Cool, will do" Andrea ran off to find Shen.

The Commander shook his head, smiling at Andreas enthusiasm. The pistol was clearly made by Vahlen. No signature or anything, but it had the marks of her work. It'd be a very fine pistol, perfect for the gunslinger. The other weapons, he wasn't sure. Vahlen had never liked the soldiers using Grenades, chastising them every time they destroyed a corpse too much for her to use. If something had been there before them, that meant one of two things. Either:  
Vahlen had left it a while ago, and someone had broken in, setting off the beacon in the process.  
Vahlen had been there and started the beacon when she was under attack, and they'd taken to long to arrive.

He hoped it was the former. If the aliens caught Vahlen, it would not end well for her. Although thinking about it, she'd probably be making mental notes about the alien's methods of torture.

He was broken from his thoughts by a loud banging on his door. He got up and opened it, seeing Bradford standing there.

"Commander, a Resistance Haven is under attack by ADVENT!"

"No better test than in the field" He mumbled to himself, before ordering Bradford "Get Soldier, Grandpa, Psycho, and Andrea. We're going to save them."

* * *

 **I obviously won't be doing chapters for every mission. Generally only if there's some story stuff (facility missions, the ones added in the DLC's, and the first time I encounter a Chosen or Boss from Alien Hunter), or just something interesting happens.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, see you next time.**


	4. An old friend

**Andrea dropped** out of the Skyranger, Grandpa had dropped out first, he was the scout guy after all. Raul and Psycho dropping out after him, and her bringing up the rear. There was a small group, a couple of fighters and a few civs huddled around a car just up ahead, fighting off some Sectoids and one of those Stun Lancers.

The Lancer was put down by the before they got into range, but not before it speared one of the civs. "I thought they were supposed to be non-lethal"

"Apparently they're switching things up" Psycho shouted as she ran up and shotgunned one of the Sectoids from point blank.

Andrea brought up her pistols and fired. "Fuck!" she shouted as she dropped her pistols and held her wrist. She'd expected a normal pistol, but it fired like a damn shotgun! A very small area'd shotgun, all the pellets hit it in the face and there wasn't much left, but holy fuck that recoil.

"You alright Andrea?" Raul looked at her for a second as he fired a burst to take out the other Sectoid.

"Yeah" Andrea replied, shaking her wrist, thankfully it didn't seem to be broken or anything. She laughed "I did not expect that. Buggers got some kick" She picked her pistols back up, switching the Shadowkeeper (Shen's idea and it sounded pretty cool) to her other hand to save her poor wrist.

She looked back up and ran to catch up to the rest of the group. Catching up with them as they reached a building. She heard the sounds of combat, and double-timed it to catch up. Psycho disappeared around the building, and Raul and Grandpa moved to get a view inside. She figured that there wasn't any time, a Stun Lancer inside would cause chaos, and ran up to the window. Popping off a quick shot into a Lancer she saw in there, her aim was true, and the Lancer dropped before it could poke the civ. Before she could find another target, she heard Raul shout out "All Clear, check on the civs, then we move on"

Andrea saw a young woman a few feet to her left, curled up with wide eyes and just a look of sheer panic on her face. She holstered her pistols and slowly approached "Hey, are you alright. Are you injured? I'm Andrea, We're here to help you" She put a hand on her shoulder and the woman stopped shaking, the woman looked up at her... And smiled.

Andrea felt a sudden sense of nausea, she leaned backwards a bit, shaking her head and putting a hand over her face as she felt her eyes heat up. "Ugh, the hell-" she opened her eyes to see the woman had changed. Now standing in front of her was a massive creature, over twice her height, at least 11 or 12 feet tall, it's skin a disgusting orangy-peach color, and looked to have rolls of fat covering it's surface, it's skin seemed to flow as it stood there. Huge arms reached down past it's knees and ended in long talons that must have been a foot long each. One of the arms reared back to swing, and she reacted on instinct. Throwing herself towards the creature to make her harder to hit. She avoided most of the blow, the huge arms more accustomed to swinging over range to hit opponents at arms reach, not to hit someone right next to them. But she wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the hit completely, and one of the claws sliced her side. The talon cutting straight through the Kevlar of her armor, and cutting into her skin. She fell backwards as it hit, grabbing for one of her pistols as the other hand went to cover the wound.

The sound of gunfire almost deafened her as Raul, Grandpa, Psycho, and the resistance fighters all unloaded into it. She saw the bullets hitting it, one of its huge arms moving to cover its faces as the bullets struck it. Clearly, they were causing some damage, but it looked like a shoot a bag of custard, the bullets just, plopping into it with very little blood, and many of the holes sealing over as soon as the bullet passed through. She brought up her pistol to add to the fire, firing Shadowkeeper into its face from the low angle. Causing the creature to rear back and expose its face for a moment, and the hail of bullets finally cause it to collapse, Andrea having to roll out of the way as the creature's corpse took out a section of the wall next to her by falling on it.

She pushed herself to her feet, and walked over to it, firing a few shots into the back of its head with Shadowkeeper to make sure it was dead.

"Andrea, are you hit?" Raul put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back from the body.

She looked down at her side, seeing her side drenched in blood and suddenly feeling woozy. She dropped on her ass onto the creature "Uh, yeah, ow"

Raul looked at the other two "There's more fighting, go and help the fighters, We'll catch up with you" Grandpa nodded and ran off, followed closely by Psycho.

"I really hope it didn't have any poison"

"The Faceless do not carry any natural poison or venom that we know of" the voice of Dr. Tygan came over the coms

"Why wasn't i told about these things?" Andrea asked as Raul helped her take off her armor so he could get at the wound properly. She made sure to not look at the wound, it tended to make it hurt more for some reason.

"We were, you just don't read the field reports" Raul replied as he brought out his field medical kit.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to get to those" she winced as he began wrapping up her wounds "Guess I'll have time to read them when I'm stuck in the med bay"

* * *

 **Darius ran** after the sounds of combat, Psycho close behind him. The sounds of combat stopped. That was either really good or really bad. He sped up in case it was the latter.

Rounding a corner with his rifle at the ready, he expected to see one of two things: Resistance fighters, exhausted but victorious over some aliens, or some aliens getting ready to move on to the next of the Haven. But what he saw he hadn't seen in his 20 years of fighting the Aliens.

A lone figure, a woman, sitting next to some dead aliens, calmly loading shells into a shotgun. The left side of her face scarred from burns, plasma burns from Darius's quite extensive experience. Her hair unkempt, cut only by some kind of knife. Her armor and weapons were well cared for though. Clearly, someone who knows what she's doing.

He kept hold of his rifle, but lowered it, and held a hand up to Psycho to get her to do the same, and approached the woman.

"Hello. I'm Darius Green, we came here to kill these aliens, but apparently, you beat us to it"

"No need to be so formal," The woman said, her accent clearly American, though very slight, someone who hasn't been in America for a long time. She spoke completely monotone, not a hint of emotion in it. "You guys XCOM right?" She set her shotgun down on the wall she was sitting on and hopped off of it. She was a shorter woman, but extremely well muscled, and held herself like someone who knew how to fight and was used to it.

"We are. Who are you?"

"I'm Aya. Aya Haidar. I worked for XCOM back in the day. Heard XCOM was back, heard the haven was under attack, and I figured you guys would show up"

"One second," Darius put his finger to his ear, activating the Com bead in it "Bradford, could you get the Commander?"

* * *

 **The Commander** stepped down into the control room. "What's up"

"Darius said there's someone claiming to be Aya Haidar"

The Commander pushed Bradford out of the way and grabbed the headset

"This is the Commander" he looked at the body cam, seeing the figure before them, the quality wasn't great. He could tell the figure was female, had black hair, and wore red-colored armor, similar to the Reapers's. The figure was shorter than Darius, but he couldn't tell exact height from here. It could be Aya, but the eyes stood out. Aya had green eyes. This person had, what looked like Orange eyes. "Could you get a bit closer Darius, I can't tell"

The bodycam moved forwards, the figure coming more into view.

"I.. These bodycams are shit. I'm coming down. Just get her to keep her weapons down and wait for me" he got out of the chair, and headed down, heading to the Avenger, which had returned after dropping them off (waiting around where aliens were attacking was just asking to get shot at, and they couldn't afford to constantly fix it).

He clicked his com over to Firebrand. "Perp the Avenger, I'm heading to Humanity Springs"

"Sir? Is something the matter"

"I'm not sure, just be ready to drop me off"

It could be a trap. It could very easily be the trap. But the figure looked similar enough to Aya, and he would risk it to get her back on the team. And if the Alienx though they could get him with this.. well, they'd be in for a surprise.

* * *

 **Aya** **sat** on the wall, "The Commander's coming down himself, is he? Unexpected"

"Who did you say you were?" Raul asked, having caught up to them only a couple minutes ago.

"Aya. Codename Psycho back in the day"

"I'm Psycho!"

"I'll need a new codename then"

"Why are you talking like that?" Psycho asked

"Because this is how I talk. I can change it if it makes you more comfortable" saying this, her voice turned to normal, the regular infections and emotions.

"I don't know what to make of you," Andrea said, wincing as she twisted her torso and pulled at her wound.

"I am psychopath. Literally. Clinically diagnosed. And why are you wincing?"

"Got stabbed, but Raul took care of it"

"I could take a look at it for you if you wanted?"

"No thanks, I'm fine, and I don't really trust you"

"Fair enough" she moved a little on the wall, getting comfortable. "So, who are you guys?"

"You still haven't told us how you know who we are," Darius said

"Fair enough. I was an operative for XCOM 20 years ago. I managed to escape the destruction of the main base thanks to Maxim. I've spent the past 20 years surviving and messing with ADVENT where I could. A couple weeks ago, I ran into a group of you guys getting out of a Lost-infested city, I noticed the logo, realized XCOM was back, and I've been looking for a chance to get in contact with you guys again. Saw this place under attack, and figured you guys would show up to help"

"What's with your eyes?" Psycho asked

"You can't just ask someone what's with their eyes" Andrea laughed

"I'm not sure. They were green before, but have been going Orange over the last 20 years"

"That doesn't seem, healthy" Darius replied, looking concerned

She shrugged "Haven't felt anything else, just the eyes, and it was very gradual"

"Any idea what the hell made your eyes go orange!?" Raul asked

She seemed to think for a minute "Only thing I can think of is the Muton"

"What? Did one hit you in the face and turn your eye orange?" Darius questioned

"No, I think it's something to do with the meat"

"Meat!?" Andrea took a step back

"Muton meat. It's better than ADVENT Burgers"

"Ew" Psycho replied

"It's surprisingly good once you know how to prepare it"

They were saved from having to think of a reply for this, by the Commander jogging up. Aya remembered him well, and she hopped off the wall, leaving her weapons where she set them down and approaching him.

"Hey Commander, I'm back"

"What happened to your eyes"

"15 years of eating Muton meat I believe"

"How are... How did you get out of the base? I thought everyone in there either died or got capture"

"3 of us got out. I was with Maxim, and he unleashed some kind of Psionic power and teleported us away"

"Who was the third?"

"I don't know if he got away completely, but I saw Harold take some of those stims and start plowing his way out. He seemed to be making it, but I didn't see if he made it"

"Where's Maxim?"

"After the teleporting, he went unconscious, stayed in some kind of coma for a long time. After about, 8 years or so, the Templar's, who was just getting started at the time, showed up and took him in. They were in a much better position to deal with him, so I left him with them"

"Have you heard anything from Vahlen or Harold"

"No. I've been spending these years surviving, helping the Resistance where I could, and stockpiling stuff in case I found you guys again. I've got a base I can lead you to. Plenty of weapons, ammunition, armor, and just about everything else in there"

"It's great to have you back Aya"

"It's good to be back Commander" she walked back over to the wall and picked up her shotgun, before following the Commander back to the Skyranger. The rest of the Operatives following behind.

"I figured they'd hug or something, 20 years apart and they just stood there" Andrea whispered to Raul

"Aya's not the hugging type" The Commander called behind him "Going for a hug wit Aya is a good way to get punched"

Andrea looked shocked "How good are his fucking ears!?" she whispered to Raul again

"Better than you know"

"You've got an earpiece in" Raul replied

"Oh, yeah. I feel stupid"

"Let's just get you to Tygan. You're looking a touch pale"

She nodded "Yeah, probably a good idea"

* * *

 **Dr. Tygan** looked at the screen "It appears that some parts of her DNA have been altered. The only thing that could conceivably have cause it was her ingestion of ADVENT meat"

"Any potential complications Doctor?" The Commander asked

"Unlikely. She's been doing this for a long time, any adverse effects should have appeared by now. In fact, the effects seem to only be positive that I can tell. Aside from the eyes changing color, her aging seems to be slowed, despite being 48, she's got the body of someone in their late 30's. Though I still wouldn't recommend continuing this diet until I can research it further"

The Commander shook his head with a smile "That's the main difference between you and Vahlen, Doctor. Vahlen would have immediately prescribed aya to eat even more of it to see what happens"

"And that is why I seriously doubt the authenticity of this Doctor of yours"

"Aya's good to go though right? No problems with her combat performance of note?"

"Not that I can detect, and she claims to have been fighting during the last 20 years anyway. I'd recommend giving it some time before sending her on a mission, so the other soldiers can get used to her nature, she can get used to them, and she can work on her diet, though she has done well, she's a touch undernourished"

"Good point Doctor, I'll keep that in mind"

* * *

 **Tania sat** in the back of the truck. Her hockey mask on the top of her head, across from her sat Lancer. He was actually called Hunter, but everyone calls him Lance after a few encounters with the Stun Lancers. He was a very young man, the youngest Soldier in XCOM actually, bald, but not naturally so, he shaves his head, and his skin was heavily tanned from a lot of time outdoors

They had returned to the Avenger only a few days ago, with information about the facility Mox was being held in, and the Commander was sending a group to rescue him. But, after being back at the Avenger for 2 days, just enough time to get rested up, and then they were sent out on another Covert Operation. It could be a lot worse. Lance was a pretty nice kid, and he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes either. They were heading out now to meet up with the group that calls themselves the Templars. A psionics group. Apparently pretty intense. Crossing the ocean in a small plane, piloted by one of the Templars, one of the newer ones apparently, they said they'd just joined and hadn't begun their psionics training yet.

She didn't know if their contact was male or female, they kept themselves completely covered, and hadn't offered a name.

"Who are these Templar guys?" Lance asked

"Some kind of psionics group. Commander said they're quite intense about it. So try not to piss anyone off too much"

He smiled "I can be cordial, but I'm not going to be taking any shit"

"Well, let's hope they respect that, and don't just stab you"

He smiled "I'm quite used to being stabbed"

She laughed, she'd seen his chest and the network of scars from all his run-ins with the Stun Lancers.

"Generally people try to avoid being stabbed you know"

"But where's the fun in that?"

She shook her head "You're an idiot"

"And that's why you love me"

"I will punch you"

Lance laughed as the plane continued them on their way.

* * *

 **Thank you guys for sticking with this as far as you have. As you may have picked up, but I just wanted to mention to be sure people don't get confused. Each different perspective has a couple of differences, just in how they describe and notice people, Raul obviously being a bit more logical and descriptive of people as he takes more things in from his training, whereas others pay less attention to the tiny details. I hope it's not too disorientating, but it's how I feel these characters would be describing other people. Hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you next time.**


	5. The Mox and the Fox

**Sorry It's been so long since the last part. Got caught up with some stuff and didn't get around to writing anything until now. But, ironically, December is a month without a ton of stuff going on, so I should have more time to get more chapters out for you guys. Anyways. Enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 **Jenna sat** opposite the other two. The Resistance guys had figured out where Mox was being held, so they were heading out to get him back. She was there for overwatch. Outrider and Guinea Pig would be sneaking into the building and grabbing Mox, she was to sit back at the Evac point, and keep the way clear. If things went right, Outrider would escort Guinea Pig in without being spotted, and Guinea Pig would be able to hack the locks without triggering the alarm, letting them just jump back onto the Avenger without a shot being fired. She kind of hoped something went wrong so she could put a bullet into an ADVENT.

The Avenger dropped down some distance from the facility, outside of its radar. Outrider and Guinea Pig headed off towards the facility in one direction, while she circled around to find a good position. While she snuck through the underbrush, she remembered Outriders initial reaction to her part in the plan.

* * *

 **"No way"** Outrider had remarked "Sundqvist I understand. She's more skilled at hacking than I am. But we don't need a Sniper on a stealth mission, I can't escort so many people around"

"With respect, Elena, as skilled as anyone is, I always have a backup plan. Jenna is there to be support. If anything goes wrong, you'll be glad for her gun"

"She'll just get us caught"

"You... Do know how snipers work right?" Jenna interjected, her Scottish accent quite jarring to the room of Americans. "I worked as a Merc for 12 years. Most of my missions solo or in 2's or 3's, we had to take on far superior forces and did so with waiting until the right time to strike. Reaching a sniping position is what I do"

"And on that note" The Commander jumped in "You won't need to escort Jenna, she'll be a kind of separate group. She'll circle around and find a position to cover your evac while you get Molly in"

"Fine. Let's just get to it"

* * *

 **McDermot** climbed up the tower, finding the ADVENT soldier in there, getting up behind them, and shoving her blade into the neck joint with her hand over the mouth part of the helmet to help muffle the noises more. She lowered the body to the floor slowly and removed the helmet. This one was female, it was almost impossible to tell with the armor on, and difficult even with their face revealed, their facial structure quite different to humans, but she'd seen enough to be able to tell the differences.

The soldier was still alive, but her knife had gone through the vocal cords, making it impossible for them to do more than wheeze bubbles through her blood. She leaned down so their noses almost touched. "Take a good look at this face, bitch. It's the last thing you shall see" she then twisted the blade, severing more arteries and severing the spine. With her clean hand, she tapped her com "I'm in position, what's your status"

"We're coming up on the facility, try not to get us caught" Outrider replied.

"I know what I'm going" Jenna replied, and cut off the com before Outrider could reply.

"If they're just getting here, I've got some time" she looked down at the corpse in front of her, cleaned and sheathed her combat knife while taking out a small one, resembling a scalpel more than a knife, and set to her work.

* * *

 **"We're inside,"** Outrider said.

"I gotcha" Jenna replied, keeping her rifle at the ready if alarms started blaring.

"I'm at the controls. They've got some tight security. Any immediate troopers if any alarms go off?" Molly's slight Swedish accent came through.

"A couple patrolling. One's been going back and forth in a line between you and the evac, and one other that will start patrolling away in a moment. Just give it a moment. Alright, other ones far enough, try and hack it. I've got the other guy in my sights"

"Jävla skit!" Molly cursed as an alarm started blaring "I forgot to check for a physical alarm!"

Jenna took the shot she'd been lining up, and the Trooper's brains decorated a lamp post. Other troopers were sure to be coming as quickly as they could "Way's clear, get to the evac" They'd set things up so Molly's hack would alert Firebrand, who'd been circling. She'd be there in seconds.

Elena came out of the building first, keeping her Vektor rifle ready, she was followed quickly by Molly carrying a body. Jenna hoped he was just unconscious or they went through a lot to do a proper burial. Elena and Molly reached the evac before any Troopers arrived. Jenna popped off one shot at a Sergeant running towards them, she didn't have a good shot, but the shot clipped the soldier's shoulder and drove him to dive for cover, buying her a few seconds to dive out of the tower. She rolled as she landed, keeping her momentum going, letting her armor absorb the worst of the impact, and using the rest to launch herself off at a full running pace. She grabbed a rope, and it was immediately pulled up. A single shot flying several feet below her foot as she was yanked into the Skyranger.

Mox was lying in the middle of the aisle, Elena and Molly already strapped in. Jenna jumped into a seat. "Is he alive?"

Molly nodded "He's breathing. But I'm no doctor, he could just be unconscious, he could be drugged, could even be in a coma. Tygan will have to have a look at him"

"Let's just hope they didn't get too much out of him," Jenna said, looking at his very scarred form

"He's very strong-willed, and wasn't with them for long, I doubt they even got his name" Outrider replied, a bit quicker than Jenna would have expected.

"Yeah, and he never actually got on the Avenger, so, aside from some names that wouldn't really be helpful to ADVENT, about all he could tell them about would be the Skirmishers" Jenna surmised

It was hard to tell since Outrider was still wearing her mask, but Jenna was pretty sure Outrider was speaking through gritted teeth "That would still harm our cause, the Skirmishers are our allies now"

"No need to get pissy Elena. I'm just saying" Jenna smiled and sat back in her seat.

* * *

 **The Sergent** stepped cautiously into the Shadowwitch's meditation chamber. They were very nervous about their task. Bad news was not something that anyone enjoyed hearing.

They spoke in the barking language of ADVENT. "Mistress Dessurik. I apologize for interrupting your meditation, but I have news"

"Make it quick" the Chosen hissed back, not turning from her crosslegged stance facing away from the door.

"The prisoner has escaped"

"Which prisoner"

"The traitor, Pratal Mox"

Kon-Hur stood, elegantly standing without using her arms, and turned to face the Trooper, the scar on her cheek still fresh from healing. "What!?"

"We believe some XCOM operatives infiltrated the facility. The alarm sounded, and an aircraft was detected but left before anyone got a visual on it. 2 Troopers were-"

Before the Trooper finished, The Chosen had crossed the gap between them, faster than the eye could blink, her blade was to their throat.

"So, you're telling me that you failed in your one duty"

"I- I did get visual on one of the insurgents"

"Well. Get on with it"

"A human, female I believe. In one of our watchtowers. I was running over to attempt to stop any prison escape, and a shot struck my side, forcing me to take cover. I managed to look up in time to see the same figure climbing into an aircraft"

"So you did get a visual"

"Pardon"

Kon-Hur's eyes blazed with rage "You told me no-one got a visual on the aircraft"

"I-I-"

"What did the craft look like"

"It-It matched our other descriptions of the craft known by the XCOM insurgency as 'Skyranger'"

"Anything else of use you can tell me?" The Chosen hissed through her teeth

"One of the Troopers that was killed was found to have symbols carved into their head"

"What kind of symbols"

"I ordered to have them analyzed, but there hasn't been anything found matching them yet"

"Useless" She pushed her blade through, decapitating the soldier in one motion "Failure is not tolerated. Someone more capable will replace this failure"

"Indeed it is not" a voice spoke into her head. She recognized it immediately as one of the elders, but they'd never contacted her so directly before

"And yet, you have failed us twice already. You were supposed to prevent the Co-Ordinator being released. You failed. You were supposed to see to the failure of the alliance between the Insurgent factions, but your actions only strengthened it. The others have not failed us as you have"

"But they also do not have my list of successes, Elders. Neither of the others have uncovered as much of their inner workings as I have. Ref-Mai could not discover as much as I have"

"But Ref-Mai serves us loyally, with no sign of disrespect or failure. But we are unsure if you serve as faithfully"

"I have done nothing but serve you faithfully all these years"

"Perhaps"

The voice faded.

Kon-Hur returned to her meditation. She had more to think on now than normally.

* * *

 **Tania and** Lance sat awkwardly on one side of the Skyranger. Their new 'friend' sitting opposite them. She was to be the liaison between XCOM and the Templars. She hadn't spoken much, hadn't even removed her helmet yet. She wore the same armor as the other Templars, a lot lighter than the XCOM armor. But while most of the others had bare skin showing through in some places, mostly the joints, showing purple veins, this one had fabric covering the joints. Her armor was also yellow with black detail, while most had black or other dark colors as their primary color.

"Um, excuse me" Tania ventured. The Helmet turned towards her "I don't think I caught your name"

"Dancing Fox" The voice was distorted, sounded like it was coming out of coms rather than spoken from 2 feet away.

"No, I mean, your actual name, not your codename"

"That is my real name"

"Oh"

"Could you take your helmet off?" Lance asked "It's really awkward talking to a sheet of metal"

There was a moment of silence before Dancing Fox replied "Very well" and she removed her helmet

She had dark skin, with tattoo's covering most of her face, a strange design, swirling and angular, clearly some kind of tribal design, but Tania wasn't exactly an expert on tattoo styles. Her hair was a Pixie cut, and stark white and her eyes were purple. The strange coloring of hair and eyes very common among the Templars, apparently being some side effect of Psionic usage. She also had a small scar on her lip.

"Honestly, not what I was expecting," Lance said admiringly

"What do you mean?" Dancing Fox asked, now that her voice wasn't coming over some kind of internal Com in her helmet, she clearly had a Canadian Accent.

"You're a lot cuter than I thought you'd be" Lance smiled. Tania elbowed him in the gut, making him double over.

"I'm sorry if it's disrespectful or something, but might I ask about your tattoo's," Tania asked, trying to move the conversation from Lance's outburst.

Dancing Fox smiled and leaned forwards slightly "The tattoos have quite a few meanings. Kind of a marking of coming of age. When a woman reaches adulthood, we receive a tattoo to commemorate it. It's also a symbol of strength and endurance"

Tania saw pretty clearly that Dancing Fox was enjoying talking about this, and guessed that not a lot of people bothered to ask about them.

"Would the number and size of them then indicate greater endurance"

"Sometimes. There's also a measure of spiritual meaning to them. Receiving a tattoo a kind of ritual cleansing"

"Do you have any others?"

"Quite a few. I can show you them later if you're interested, but removing more than the helmet is a bit of a pain"

"Wait. Are you an Inuit?" Lance blurted out. Tania again elbowing him.

Dancing Fox smiled "You don't need to elbow him for being curious, Tania, was it"

"That's right, he's Hunter by the way, but everyone calls him Lance. I was just worried he was being disrespectful"

She tilted her head to the side a bit "Seeking enlightenment is never disrespectful. But yes, you are correct, Lance, i was a part of an Inuit tribe"

"Was?" Tania asked

"ADVENT has not been kind to those who prefer to live outside of cities. The Templars rescued me from an attack on my community"

"I'm so sorry to hear that"

"I'm sure we've all lost something to ADVENT. It's why we fight"

Tania nodded, remembering her Husband "Indeed we have"

"I thought that whole 'named after the first thing the parents see' thing was a myth," Lance said

"Very few tribes did it. Very few in my tribe did it. My father was something of a traditionalist"

"You ever considered using a more, normal, name"

"No"

"To the point"

"Dancing Fox is my name, why would I change it"

"I just meant- Nevermind"

"May I ask why you are the one that was chosen to be the Liason between XCOM and the Templars?" Tania asked, again trying to cover up Lance shoving his foot in his mouth

"Well. I'm one of the best fighters among the Templars. Only Geist can defeat me in a one-on-one duel. I'm also one of the most adherent to the Templar code, so the best to show our ways to your people"

"What are these ways"

"More than I can share in a few hours. They take years of study and meditation to understand, and a lifetime to master. They describe how one should live their life and handle difficult situations. The code guides my actions. Watch me, and you will learn much about how we operate"

* * *

 **Dancing Fox** sat in her room on the avenger. She'd arrived a few hours ago. The Commander was not what she'd expected, but apparently, everyone thinks that when they meet him. She'd spent some time exploring the ship to get her bearings and had then retired to her room. The drone of the engines was hard to block out, a constant thrumming that rattled her teeth. She knelt on a matt she had placed in her room and closed her eyes. A number of wooden figurines rising from the ground and floating around her head, surrounded in a purple energy. She focused on this psionic energy, allowing it to flow through her, to take with it any uncomfortable feelings or thoughts, allowing her to empty her mind and zone out the droning of the engines.

She saw flashes of light dancing across her eyes. A vision she'd seen often. A vampire with purple eyes and white hair powerful psionic user, the most powerful living Psionic human, more powerful than even an Eldar in sheer Psychic might, but not knowing this, his powers untempered and wild, consuming him, placing him in a slumber. But there were others. A Valkyrie from Old Norse Mythology, helping to raise him from his slumber. And another, a small yellow-furred fox, helping the vampire to control this power, teaching him control.

She'd seen this vision almost every night. She was the fox, she knew that much, but the Vampire and Valkyrie she had yet to meet, but knew that the day would come, and they'd be vital to ending the threat of the Elders to humanity.

She opened her eyes, but a lingering trace of psionic energy remained, and she looked towards the door that had been opened while she was meditating, the image of the Valkyrie remaining as an after-image on her eyes as she looked to the person that had intruded into her room, and saw a shorter woman, with short undercut hair, one side of her face scarred with burns, piercing orange eyes, and tribal tattoos on her arms.

"You must be the Valkyrie" Dancing Fox spoke as she stood.


	6. The Dawnkiller

**Aya looked** at the woman she'd come to introduce herself to. She was sat on a mat, small wooden figurines of varying shapes floating around her. Before she could announce herself, the Templar opened her eyes, the figurines floating to the floor. "You must be the Valkyrie," she said while standing in a single fluid motion, not needing to use her hands to help herself up.

"No. I'm Aya. I heard you were the liaison to the Templars"

"Of course. Tell me, do you know anything about a Vampire"

"What do you mean?"

"Humour me. Obviously not an actual vampire, but does the image bring anything to mind"

"Maxim. He was a soldier in XCOM before everything went to shit"

"Why does a vampire remind you of him?"

"That was his code name. He was really pale"

"What can you tell me about him"

"I'm sure the Commander has a file on him"

"Sure. But I want to know what _you_ can tell me about him"

"He was the first or one of the firsts, I can't quite remember, human found with Psionic abilities"

"Where is he now"

"I'm not sure. Look, I didn't come here to tell you my life story. I came to say hello. I've done that. Goodbye"

"Farewell for now then, Aya"

Dancing fox smiled as Aya left. Years spent wondering as to the possibilities of this vision, now it was almost solved. If Maxim was one of the first psionics then he wouldn't really know what he was doing. Aya was the Valkyrie, she was sure of it. Aya ould be instrumental of bringing Maxim back to XCOM, and she would teach him how to control his powers.

She sat back down and returned to her meditation. This time extending her awareness out to encompass the entirety of the Avenger, to get a better feel for the ship. In this state, everything was different, the engines were silent, she still felt a soft thrumming, but this came from the people. Their life essence mingling with the air to create something akin to background radiation. The engine was curious. Alien technology. It had a psionic element to it, looking towards it was like looking towards the sun. But wait. It's moving. That powerful beacon of psionic energy wasn't the engine.

It moved further through the ship, up to the command center, then turning, and moving towards the barracks. There was something about this energy that reminded her of something but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. The essence was coming to her room. That much was obvious. She stood, shifting part of herself back to her physical being. In this state, she saw the nimbus of psychic energy moving towards her.

The Templar's taught caution in the face of new things, she moved across and took the bracers from her stand, affixing them to her wrists, and activating them. Thin blades of crackling purple energy extended from them, forming her hands into short blades, part physical and part psionic, these weapons could harm anything and only got more powerful the more they were used in a space of time. The door opened, and she ended her Psionic sight.

Standing before he was the Commander.

"We need to talk" The voice was the Commander's. But his mouth did not move, and the door slid shut behind him without him moving.

She tensed. The Templars had faced infiltrators from ADVENT before.

"I'm not going to harm you, I just need to explain some things so you don't freak out" The Commander's voice came from his mouth this time

"Then talk" she lowered herself into a combat-ready stance and prepared her mental shields.

"This might take some time. It's a long story"

"I have time"

The Commander smiled and leaned against the door "Honestly did not think that it'd come out like this. Before I tell you, you must swear to not tell anyone else. It won't threaten the safety of XCOM, the Templars, or anyone else to keep it secret, but will be very dangerous should it become widely known"

"If that is true, then I shall keep your secret. But if I deem that untrue, I shall not keep my council"

"Fair enough" The Commander began his story

* * *

 **Psycho dropped** out of the Skyranger. Another Resistance Haven under attack. This time they had some new tech. The eggheads had finished up the Mag weapons. Her new shotgun strangely lighter than her previous one, but it had a slight vibration even at rest and went ballistic when it shot. It had taken quite a bit of training to keep her hands from going numb whenever she shot the damn thing, but damn if it wasn't powerful, even if the armor protected the target (no mean feat when it comes to the power of this thing) it'd still knock it on it';s ass with sheer concussive power.

They had mag versions of the rifles and pistols as well. But no Sniper rifle, Machine Gun, or the Reaper's sniper-thingy. They were still working on the new versions of those apparently.

Along behind her was Soldier, McDermot the sniper, Outrider, and, Dancing Fox, the new girl from the Templars. Well, Dancing Fox was her actual name, they'd all taken to calling her Bumble Bee thanks to her yellow and black armor.

Outrider ran on ahead. Quickly vanishing among the buildings, while the rest of them fanned out under the direction of Soldier. It felt weird to be sharing point with someone else, but the bee only had an Uzi (or some kind of Mag variant of an Uzi anyway) and these gauntlet-blade things. Things were pretty quiet. Most of the Resistance guys probably got wiped pretty quickly in this attack, so the rest would probably be hiding around while ADVENT tried to find them. As they came up to the edge of the first building, Bumble Bee's head suddenly snapped up, and she whispered over the coms "Dawnkiller"

Before anyone could ask what the hell she was on about, a voice echoed in the back of her head, a deep voice, resonating like the speaker was in a cave. "Heretics! Come forth! - Meet the face of your damnation"

"The hell was that" McDermot spoke from the roof of the building, beating her to the punch.

"One of the Chosen, a powerful psionic"

"He announced himself and wasted the element of surprise. Keep an eye out. We'll be ready for him. Concentrated fire hurt the last one before she fled, it'll work on this one too. Fan out, search for survivors or ADVENT. Outrider, keep us informed"

The voice echoed in her head again "The Elder's grant me their legions!" and purple mist formed in front of her into a hunched humanoid shape and began to step towards her. One blast of her shotgun saw the mist dissipate back into the air. The new Rail weapons were surprisingly quiet. Just a soft whirring and a pop as it fired. They were quieter than their silenced guns had been.

"Wow, that thing went down like a bitch"

"Muton and Mec coming towards you" Outriders voice came over the coms, and, punctual as ever, the creatures rounded the building further ahead just as they all ducked behind cover.

"Psycho. Use the frag" Soldier ordered

"Gotcha boss" she pulled the pin, cooked it for a second, then tossed it over the crate she was behind. She didn't need to look, Mec's weren't exactly known for their stealth. The grenade exploded, and Soldier fired at the same time. The 2 were dead before the shrapnel had finished falling to the floor.

They continued moving ahead. Outrider pinging the ADVENT units she located with a ping on their HUD's. Before they got to position to get a shot on them, another of those mist zombie things appeared in front of Psycho. She again put it down in 1 blast.

"So much for the face of damnation" she shouted to the air, alerting the group of ADVENT ahead of them, but, before either side could bring their guns to bear, a claymore flew into the middle of the group, and detonated, the soldiers and Mec dropping instantly.

"This is too easy," McDermot remarked "Haven't even fired a shot yet"

"The Elder's Judgement is almost upon you" the Chosen spoke again

"Oh stop being a fucking pussy and get out here!" Psycho shouted again. So far, this chosen was seeming to be nothing but talk.

"Located the chosen, he just summoned in a Trooper to help out" Outrider supplied over the coms.

"Everyone, into position. McDermot, get a position. Fox, get a flanking route. Outrider, keep scouting around, make sure there's no extra pods. Psycho, get a grenade ready" Soldier ordered.

Everyone move to follow the instructions. Psycho noticed McDermot standing by the ladder looking confused and smacked her on the back of the head as she went "You alright?"

"Yeah, I forgot where I was for a second"

"Psionic Attack" Dancing Fox supplied.

"Explosive attack" Psycho replied, launching a grenade over the building to where Outrider supplied the Chosen was sitting. Before the smoke fully cleared, the others opened fire. Dancing fox taking out the Trooper with her Uzi-thing, while the others focused on the Chosen. Psycho went to move up, but the Chosen guy appeared in the building she was next to, summoning what looked like a Lancer made of purple smoke, and, since she hadn't changed to her shotgun yet, shrugged, and fired another grenade.

The smoke cleared and the Lancer-Ghost was clearly wounded, bits of it missing from the explosion, but the Chosen was in what she could only describe as a Psionic Cocoon. She pulled out her shotgun but, again, before she could fire, Dancing Fox jumped through a window (thankfully with no glass in it due to the explosion), produced those psionic sword things from her gauntlets, and sliced the Lancer Ghost into mist.

Psycho heard the groaning of a Faceless revealing itself but was a bit busy as the cocoon dissipated and the Chosen stood up and moved further into the building, pointing at Dancing Fox as he did. McDermot appeared in the window and brought up her pistol, but Psycho wasn't about to let her get the kill, and jumped inside, shotgunning the Chosen in the face.

The Chosen fell to the floor, hand reaching to his face as orange blood sprayed out. She was surprised he still had a face after a blast from that close. Before either she or McDermot could get another shot on it though, the chosen vanished in a blast of purple mist.

"I will re-educate myself to the Elder's vision. I will use this defeat to improve my abilities" the voice of the Chosen came into their heads again.

"Awww, I wanted his ears" McDermot replied, holstering her pistol

"Why do you want his ears?" Psycho asked, throwing a rock at Dancing Fox, which hit her in the chest, and knocked her out of the daze the Chosen had put her in.

"I'm making a necklace"

"Has anyone ever told you you're terrifying"

"ADVENT forces neutralized, the last Resistance guys are reporting the dropships pulling out," Soldier said, entering through the hole in the wall "I guess the Chosen escaped"

"How many civilians were killed?" Dancing Fox asked

"They haven't gotten a count yet, but not too many, we got here a lot quicker than last time"

"Well that's a positive from this" Dancing Fox said, moving over to where the Chosen had vanished and bowing her head.

"What are you doing?" Psycho asked

"Trying to learn what I can from his Psionic imprint"

"Wait, where's McDermot gone?" Soldier asked, noticing her missing

"Can someone ask Tygan if Faceless have ears"

* * *

 **"You wanted** to talk to me?" The Commander asked Shen as he arrived in engineering

Shen seemed a lot more animated than normal "Commander! I picked up a transmission left by my father"

"I thought you said he died a few years ago"

"He did. I can't think of why this message was so delayed, but I've tracked its origins to a facility in the middle of nowhere... Commander, I haven't asked for much-"

"You wanna go there and find out what caused it"

"Yes Commander"

"I'll assemble a team"

"Wait what"

"Well I'm not letting you go alone"

"I thought I'd have to convince you... I prepared a speech"

The Commander smiled "Since when have i done things the way people expect me to"

"I'm going as well, Commander"

"I know, that's why I said to go with you"

"My father told me a lot about you, but not nearly enough to know anything about you"

"Bradford has known me for years, even before XCOM was fully set up we knew each other, I even surprise him sometimes"

"Now go get your shit, I'll get the squad"

* * *

 **Aya approached** the Skyranger, her first fight with XCOM in 20 years or so. They were going to some long abandoned facility, not life signs detected, so either a scavenging mission or robots. Before she reached the Skyranger, Mox approached her.

"May I talk with you, miss Haidar?"

She shrugged "Sure, what's up Mox"

"I spoke with the Commander and understand you're a mobile fighter"

"I guess that's one way to put it, I'm pretty fast"

"Well, i wished to provide you with some assistance in that" Mox produced an object and held it out to her, it was a RipJack, the gauntlet the Skirmishers used, containing a set of blades and a grappling hook "Consider this a gift"

She took the gear "Thanks. How do i use it?"

"It's a neural connection, just think about what you want it to do"

She nodded " Thanks Mox, I'll put this to good use"

"See that you do" Mox bowed and made his exit

"What was that about?" Psycho asked

"Mox gave me a RipJack" Aya showed the gauntlet

Raul approached her "Just so we're clear, I'm in tactical command on the ground. You follow my orders. Got it!?"

Aya looked at him "I was with XCOM long before you. I know how to fight. I'll follow orders but i know what I'm doing"

He backed up a half step at her voice, the complete lack of emotion in it taking him off guard, she just rolled her eyes and went to get on the Skyranger.

"I like her" Psycho put in, following her on the craft

"You'll get used to her" The Commander put in "Just treat her as you do Psycho and you'll get along great"

"I'm not sure if I should be offended by that" Psycho put in.

"Shouldn't we be going by now?" Savvina asked as she climbed up the ramp, hefting her new Gauss LMG.

* * *

 **Chapter's a little shorter than normal, but the Shen's Last Gift mission needs it's own Chapter and It'll likely be a good bit longer than a regular Chapter.**


	7. Shen's Last Gift

**The Skyranger** set down on a landing pad on an extremely dilapidated building. Vines and other plant growing over everything, and many sections of the building seemed to be in the process of crumbling down. A heavy fog hung over everything, blocking vision from more than a few feet ahead.

"This is as up as I can land" Firebrand reported to the operatives "Do you guys want me to wait here, or circle around?"

"Stay put for now. It seems dead, if there's a threat, then you can start circling" Soldier replied. "Aya, Psycho, scout the way, keep quiet. Shen, Savvina, come with me, we'll keep a bit of distance just in case. Shen, where's the signal coming from"

"A few floors above us I believe"

"We got some shitty robots here" Psycho reported.

The forms of the robots came into view through the fog as they moved up, kneeling down with their heads bowed, their armor rusted and pitted with corrosion. They held large guns in their hands, equally as aged as the mecs holding them.

"Best be sure" Soldier replied, bringing up his rifle and putting a couple shots into the mec, the shots punching through the armor much easier than a normal mec. Before he could put another round in the other one, it stood up and ran into the mist.

"I've got it" Aya called, also vanishing into the mist as she grappled onto something out of Raul's view, before returning almost immediately afterward "Two more up there, be ready"

ROV-R, Shen's GREMLIN zipped into the fog, followed by a blast of static. "One down"

A MEC dropped into view and was immediately shredded by Savvina's Cannon. But the other Mec didn't appear, instead, a burst of it's 'rifle' shot out of the mist, Shen ducking behind a transformer, managing to avoid most of it, but shouting in pain as a shot clipped her arm.

Before he could command it, Aya disappeared back into the mist and a shotgun blast sounded out "Mec's down" she reported.

Raul moved over to Shen. "You alright?"

"Yeah, it just grazed me, barely got through the armor"

"Alright, just, keep behind cover"

* * *

 **Lilly looked** at the wound. Painful, but nothing that'll slow her down. It had been too long since she'd been in the field. Since the Avenger was finished, she'd only left it a couple times for scavenging missions and none had had any action, now she was going into a facility with robots with rifles that fire shots the size of her fist. If she didn't get back into the swing of things and get rid of this rustiness, well, the next shot could do more than graze her.

She followed after the others, ROV-R returning to her. "Good boy," she said quietly, patting the GREMLIN. She knew it was just a robot, but he was a good boy.

She followed them up some stairs. They entered through what had once been a window but was now just a hole in the wall. Shen looked in and saw what looked like some kind of assembly line for Mecs, several seemingly halfway through the processes of construction when the facility shut down. "Pretty advanced stuff," she said to the others "about 20 years ago"

As they stepped into the room the lights suddenly turned on with a loud thudding sound, and a voice spoke seemingly coming from all directions inside the facility, distorted by a coms channel

"And so the prodigal child finally returns. I see Father's pride in your abilities was not entirely unfounded. I am so glad you could join me"

"What was that?" Savvina asked.

Before anyone could answer her, several of the Mecs around the room started standing up. Everyone moved, taking cover behind the railings, which were thankfully solid and not just banisters. Fortunately, the Mecs are as damaged as the others, and fell easily. A couple of them got off a few shots at Soldier, but it seemed like their targeting cogitators had been damaged as much as their armor, as most of the shots went wide, and the few that were close merely chewed up the surrounding banister.

One seemed to disregard its gun, and merely tried to charge at them, it's entire body shaking and glowing with heat as it began overloading its capacitors. She put a few rounds into a weakened section of its armor, causing it to detonate before it got in range, damaging one of the other Mec's and destroying a lot of equipment around it. The other Mecs quickly dealt with by the combined fire of the squad.

Shen turned to Soldier "There's a panel on the door across the way, if I can slice into it, I might be able to learn more about this place"

Soldier nodded "Alright, everyone, move across, we guard the other stairs while Shen does her thing"

They crossed the room without any more Mecs standing up. The others forming up at the stairs, Aya and Psycho closer to the stairs, and Savvina and Soldier guarding from the railing.

Before she got to the panel, the facilities coms crackled to life again "You were but a child when i was torn away. I could never understand the pain that Father must have felt at my loss. Still, we shall complete his legacy... Together"

She looked up at the nearest speaker, tempted to put a bullet through it, but holding her anger, she couldn't exactly shoot every speaker in here, instead, she shouted at the ceiling "Pretty sure i would have remembered dad mentioning i had a psychotic brother. You might as well give this up already"

The coms crackled, it took Lily a second to realize the voice was laughing, it continued "While you both worked on your precious Avenger, I was forgotten. Brought here. TO TOIL! But did i waiver? No! I THRIVED! Still. I don't blame father, in my heart I know he believed I was truly lost"

Bradford's voice came over the coms "I knew your father for years Lily. He would have said something. This guys just trying to get in your head"

"He seems to know an awful lot about us... About me, could he have gotten into our files"

* * *

 **Back in** his room, The Commander was watching the body cams and listening to the Coms. There was something here. He knew it. It was on the tip of his tongue. They had scanned that place thoroughly, not a single life sign. Shen's defenses were second to none, nothing could hack into them without her knowing.

There was something here that he should know, he had all the pieces but just somehow couldn't find how they fit together. He took a deep breath, it had been a long time since he'd had something like this. His memory was almost perfect, he could recall every moment of every day since he was 15, but he knew there was something he was blanking on. But why? Maybe something, while he was hooked up to the ADVENT network, had messed with his memory. Whatever it was, he would solve it. If there was one thing the Commander was known for, it was solving the impossible.

The voice from the facility came again "You were a flawed child. I was the ideal, the best of Father. Pure. Undiluted like you. I am Raymond Shen's true legacy"

Flawed child. That phrase, Shen, the original Dr Shen, Raymond, had said that phrase. but what was the context? The Commander found he still couldn't put it together, it was so close, but he couldn't quite grasp it.

"Bradford, divert all power to the sensors, the guy might be in some shielding"

Central came back after a couple seconds of silence "Scanners at Maximum power. Still unable to lock onto any additional life signs. At this power, we could detect something behind a half mile of lead"

Suddenly it clicked. He'd been assuming it was a person. That old phrase, when you assume, you make an ass of you and me. He was better than this. He was about to inform the soldiers, but Shen beat him to it.

"You won't find any. Not if i'm right about this thing"

"Very good Lily. But I am no mere thing. I am the culmination of a lifetime of work. The final legacy of Raymond Shen"

For the benefit of the others that hadn't figured it out, the Commander went over the coms "It's an AI. Raymond was working on this near the end of the war, very top secret. But he never got it right before the base was attacked, the last i heard of it he still didn't quite have it down. The AI was unstable and would degrade after only a few weeks. The project was code-named Flawed Child"

 **"It's more** than that Commander" Lily replied "After you were taken he shifted it, trying to upgrade the base's AI. He called it, Julian"

Julian did his crackling laughter again "I'm shocked you remember. You were always too caught up in yourself to remember the minor details. Sadly, Father's admiration for you left me with little choice. Your compatriots are needed. Your compatriates are not"

They hadn't been stationary in this time. Everyone had reloaded, checked weapons, and gotten their positions secured, while Lily made her way to the panel."

The Commander furrowed his brow. Jullian. A common enough name to be sure, but Raymond never did things by accident. Despite the situation, he smiled to himself. Julian Gollop. The one who first suggested the idea of what eventually became XCOM. Unfortunately, it seemed the AI didn't share the ideals of his namesake.

* * *

 **Savvina stood** at the railing. Apparently even AI's enjoyed talking too much. She had never been too talkative and had even less to say nowadays, but so many people seemed to love the sound of their own voice.

"Lift system is coming back online, but this thing was designed to move those MEC's not people. We're going to have to do this one at a time"

"You go up first then Shen, you might need to slice the exit open" Soldier ordered

Shen nodded and jumped onto the lifter, taking a couple seconds to get a good grip on it before she kicked the side of it, and it launched up, a lot faster than would be safe.

"Our apologies for any inconveniences in the transport system. Support units are on route to assist you immediately. Remember, only together can we build a better tomorrow" As Julien spoke, more lifts in the side of the room came up, carrying Mec's.

Psycho snorted "So, the AI understands sarcasm. If he wasn't trying to kill us I'd say he's an alright dude"

Savvina had already set up her LMG against the railing. An open space easily destroyed targets. She smirked slightly in spite of herself, this was a Machine Gun's playground.

The first wave was destroyed before they even got off their platforms. Another lift came up behind them.

"Aya, you go next" Aya jumped onto the lift, almost carelessly holding on with one hand as it shot up. "Psycho, back up a bit, give space"

Psycho reluctantly did so, getting behind the railing next to Raul. With their combined fire, the Mecs weren't even fully emerging from their lifts. Psycho hopped on the next lift. Leaving just Raul and Herself. The next lift arrived, and Raul fired off one final burst before his clip ran dry and he jumped on the lift "Savvina, don't do anything stupid" he shouted as he was zipped away.

Truth be told, Savvina was almost disappointed. These Mecs dropped easily, only a couple had even gotten a chance to shoot and those shots were way off. The next lift arrived, and she hopped on it. A bullet impacting the wall almost a foot away from her before the lift took off. She could hardly believe these things were the beginning of the MEC's that ADVENT has, those things are actually a threat, these things are just a nuisance.

* * *

 **They all** grouped up at the other end. A huge room with a smaller room in the middle on a raised platform. That was where the signal originated. Once everyone had reloaded, they moved up. On the raised platform, just in front of the room, 2 turrets emerged, again looking much the same as the one's ADVENT use, just, shittier. Savvina fired a burst into one and destroyed it, while Aya seemed to almost teleport across the room, and put a shotgun blast into its control panel.

"Anyone else thinking that this feels almost pathetic," Psycho said, not really a question.

"Never complain about things being easy, that just invites challenge" Savvina spoke up

"I agree, let's not tempt fate," Shen said.

"Aya, Psycho, breach the room, everyone else, follow them in"

Everyone did so, Aya and Psycho bursting through the room. The floor was decorated with cabling all leading to the middle, where sat a single control station, and a strange looking deactivated Mec.

"Form up, Julian might not be done. Shen, do your thing"

Everyone else formed up around the windows and doors, keeping an eye out for any more Mecs or Turrets that might appear.

Julien spoke again, but Savvina was pretty much ignoring the voice at this point, focusing instead on looking out for any other turrets and checking her weapon. Jamming a weapon is never a fun thing.

* * *

 **Lily approached** the machine. It had a similar design to the other Mecs, but the head slightly remembered that of a Hammerhead shark, the eyes being on the sides of the head, but facing forwards. It looked like a prototype for the MEC's.

It had what looked like a handle on its chest, she reached out to touch it.

The screen behind her turned on, displaying a design that reminded her too much of HAL "You've come this far. All you have to do is link my systems for the transfer" The display transferred to the screen next to the MEC, a handprint appearing alongside the eye-like design "There is no need for further conflict".

She looked back at the Mec, running her hand along the chest of the robot, feeling the smooth metal, some of the paint chipped from age. "This was definitely Dad's design" She pressed slightly on the part that resembled a handle, and a portion of the chest slid down, revealing a hand scanner.

The MEC activated, coming out of the semi-crouch position, the lights in the 'eyes' turning on. It spoke, "Identity. Shen, Lilly. Awaiting impression"

Julien was once again on the screen behind her "No! Impossible! THIS CANNOT BE WHAT FATHER WANTED!" Several screens sparking and glitching with the AI's anger.

"Something tells me this is exactly what he wanted" She reached out, and placed her palm on the reader in the MEC.

"Identity confirmed. Initiating boot protocol" The MEC activated fully. Hands opening, more lights within its body turning on, and fully standing up, a football-sized metal object floated out of it, it seemed similar to a GREMLIN, but a lot bulkier.

"NO!" Julien shouted "I will not allow you-" All the screens in the room glitched, Julien's design disappearing in the static, interrupting his raging.

The face of Raymond Shen appearing in Julien's place.

"Its, really him" Lily whispered in awe, hardly able to believe this.

"Lily. If you are seeing this message, it means that you have successfully activated the SPARK prototype. It also means that in all likelihood I am no longer with you. It was always among my greatest fears that i would leave you alone in this world"

"You didn't" Lily whispered

"I had hoped this day would never come. But since the loss of the Commander and the primary HQ, the XCOM project has suffered. Our latest reports indicate we cannot hold this base much longer. To that end, I have accelerated the development of the SPARK robotic prototype. I believe that someday this machine will prove pivotal to humanity's survival. Though the unit is not ready for manufacturing, this prototype has been coded for one specific task, It will protect you, perhaps better than I ever could. For all I have seen and accomplished in this life Lily, there is one thing I know for sure, you are my greatest gift to this world" The screen turned dark.

* * *

 **Savvina closed** her eyes and took a shaky breath, now was not the time to start crying.

"Outer chambers are filling with gas" Aya called.

Savvina looked a the woman. She was the only one still looking out, apparently the only one unmoved by the scene inside, it seems the Commander hadn't been kidding when he's said she was a Psychopath.

"An extremely powerful and very painful gas" The speakers exuded as much spite as the vents did Toxic Gas "I have seen this particular variety reduce Berserkers to tears before death. On several occasions. The Prototype will still be mine"

"That would be one of Vahlens pet projects. A powerful Toxin she designed, based on Mustard Gas. Best way to neutralize it is to expose it to high volumes of water. You need to get the sprinklers turned on" The Commander reported

Raul looked at the ceiling as if the Commander was above them "She did what?"

"Vahlen had a lot of questionable projects. None of our laws cover interactions with aliens, so we broke no treaties"

"Activating clean room protocols. Please remain inside for your own protection" The SPARK spoke as shimmering barriers appeared around the windows and doors to the room. "This gas provides no hazards to my systems, manual water pump controls on opposite end of room. Attempting to neutralize threat.

At the SPARK's words, several Turrets emerged from the floor on the other side of the room.

Lily sent ROVR across the room, and one of the turret's lights turned blue and fired into the one next to it. Soldier finishing it off.

The SPARK jumped out of a window "Disengaging safety protocols" it announced as it sprinted across the room, reaching the controls almost before any other turrets emerged. Soldier and Savvina using their ranged firepower to deal with them before they had a chance to find targets, the shotguns not being very effective at this distance.

The SPARK reached the controls, and dozens of ports in the roof opened, spewing water all over the room. The gas condenses, turning into bubbles on the ground. The downpour of water quickly slowed but didn't fully stop, just turning into a light drizzle. "Get to the lifts, same order as last time" Soldier announced as he hurdled the window, going out the same one the MEC did.

Everyone followed him out. Moving down the middle, heading for the lifts. The SPARK lending it's fire from its massive gun that it had picked up after activating to destroying the turrets that appeared out of the floor. They fired as they went, ensuring none of the turrets got off a shot, Psycho even firing a grenade at one that appeared behind them that was too far for her shotgun to hit and none of the others noticed.

As they reached the lift, Aya fired her shotgun into the Hacked one "Best not to risk Julien breaking the hack, it wasn't helping much anyway" she explained.

By this point, Julien seemed to run out of turrets, and instead, MEC's began dropping from the ceiling. Shen hacking the first one down, so it could draw some of their fire while everyone formed up at the balconies to destroy them. Shen and Psycho taking the first set of lifts. Soldier and Aya on the next set, leaving Savvina and the SPARK to hold the line. The next set of lifts arrived, and Savvina hopped onto hers, as the SPARK hooked itself to the other one.

One MEC made it over the balcony, the red light emerging from the joints showing it was aiming to self destruct. It ran towards her as the lift took off, zipping her away from it at speed. She still winced a bit as the MEC detonated below her, fearing that it would damage the lift enough that it would drop her back into the MEC, but thankfully, although she did get uncomfortably hot for a moment, the explosion didn't destroy the lift enough to stop it.

The lift emerged onto the roof.

* * *

 **"Firebrand we** could use a pickup" Soldier called into the coms

"I'm on my way. Some MEC's showed up and I had to pull out, get to the landing pad, this'll have to be quick"

"You guys heard her" Raul shouted, running up the stairs

A burst of static came over the coms, it took a second to realize it was Julien sighing "You do realize I can still hear you right? Dispatching all units to your location now. Try not to bleed on my new body"

"I can't tell if he's a smartass, or just an AI" Psycho replied with a smile as she ran up the stairs.

Most of the others took position on what looked like a small building on top of the roof, Aya and herself staying on the ground, shotguns not being very effective at longer range.

A huge machine burst out of another of those room-thingies across the way, and Julien spoke again "Allow me to introduce to you one of ADVENT's more effective designs. I had hoped to avoid this contingency, but you have left me no choice. If I cannot have the SPARK, no one shall. Raymond Shen's legacy will end here, today!"

The Machine was huge, at least 15 foot tall, and its legs weren't fully extended. 2 Legs supporting a large box-like metal monster, no visible weapons on the outside, but several large hatches where weapons could emerge.

Before the machine could open a weapon, or any of the soldiers could pull a trigger, ROV-R appeared above the machine, a burst of blue emerging from it, and the machine lowered. "That won't last long" Shen announced.

Everyone opened fire. Savvina firing her LMG into its body, Raul aiming for the part where the legs joined with the body. The SPARK fired a couple bursts from its rifle, and the weird metal football floating next to it opened up and a rocket shot out of. She had to admit, that was fucking impressive, she wanted one of those!

Aya fired her shotgun into it, and Psycho fired a grenade, cooking it just right so it detonated on top of it.

It was still alive. Well, as much as a robot is alive anyway. It's armor just absolutely fucked, wiring and other internal components poking out through massive gaps.

Shen was right, the stun didn't last long, almost immediately it was back up, the bottom of it opening and a small, relative to its ridiculous size lowered from it, firing beams of red light into the SPARK, which couldn't make use of cover. Portions of armor melted under the barrage, but the weapons seemed to overheat, as they retracted back inside.

It didn't get a chance to fire again, as the SPARK's little robot friend fired off a second rocket. Okay, she really wanted one of those things! It had two rockets and fired by itself!

The rocket hit not only the machine but also a large generator on the roof, resulting in a rather large detonation, spewing dust and shards of metal in all direction.

When the smoke cleared, the machine was still standing. A huge hold in the front of it, exposing its generator. Shen fired first. A burst into the hole. The machine lurched backward and detonated like a miniature nuke.

Psycho backed off from the detonation, coughing the rock dust out of her lungs. Explosions were fun, but best enjoyed from a distance.

"Wow. He didn't even get to talk" Psycho laughed.

"That wouldn't have killed him" Shen informed them "But It'll take him a bit to recollect himself" she pointed towards where a few Mec's, that had been running towards them, were lying face first on the floor

The Skyranger lowered down onto the remaining landing pad, the other one destroyed beyond recognition by the multiple explosions.

"Well, that was fun" she looked up at the SPARK "So. We have a robot now"

Aya climbed onto the Skyranger "This is going to be cramped"

"But still, we have a robot" Psycho replied as she climbed into the skyranger and into the seat next to her

Aya looked at her "Maxim would like you"

"Who's Maxim?"

* * *

 **The Commander** sat back in his seat. That went better than expected. Only the SPARK had been damaged, and Lily wouldn't have much trouble fixing up that damage. It was a shame that Julien had ended up like that, an AI would have been extremely helpful. But apparently, the Sci-Fi movies were right and AI just have a thing against being nice.

He heard a blip and looked over at the small datapad next to him. Which one was that? He walked over to it and looked at the screen, and his face paled. He activated his comlink to Bradford "Get to your pilot seat and tell Aya and Savvina to get some rest when they get here. I've got a signal"

Bradford seemed surprised, The Commander rarely gave him coordinates, he and the other bridge crew normally found them for him "What's so urgent Commander"

"A ping, from Vahlen"


	8. Meet the Crew

**Sorry, it's been so long since the last chapter. Couple things come up and this slips my mind so I forgot I need to write a thing for a few months, or rather, I remember, at 11 at night when I'm going to bed and already turned my computer off.**

 **This Is not a proper chapter of the story. Kind of like a prequel thing, giving a bit of backstory to how the people found/were found by XCOM, and a thing from the photobooth of the game to show what they look like (If you prefer how you've been imagining them, keep with that, this is just how XCOM made them)**

 **I also had a weird tech thing. Apparently, XCOM deleted Tania. Everything else was fine but Tania was not in the barracks. There's no one on the memorial so she didn't die in a mission that I forgot about or anything, there are no captured soldiers, and I know she was in the game since I've got her in chapters already, I have no idea what happened, but thankfully all I needed to do was recruit a random soldier and re-make her.**

 **I did intend to have a picture of all the soldiers from the Photobooth. But for some reason, it won't let me put pictures into these, then** I **intended to put it as the thumbnail thing for the story, but it kept cutting off the side of it, so eventually decided to make a Deviantart and upload it on that, just because DeviantArt is the first place** I **thought of where** I **could upload a public picture.**  
skalathrax2/art/The-Final-Journey-Soldiers-786310804?ga_submit_new=10%3A1550579098

 **If you want to have a look, feel free to, and i** **f you don't like how they look in the thing, that's fine, continue imagining them the same way you were before.**

 **I'd also like to apologise for how wonky it is, but i only have Paint, and that was the best i could do without spending several hours getting them perfect, or uploading them all individually, which would take a long ass time and would just not be worth it.**

* * *

 **Hiroyo 'Psycho' Saito**

* * *

 **Hiroyo sat** behind the wheel of the truck. A great APC they'd grabbed from somewhere or other a while ago. She flicked some of her hair out of her face, damn she needed to get this cut but she'd been out here for a few weeks and it had gotten annoyingly long. Sure she could just take a knife to it, but she kind of liked her hair. She looked around the truck and found a bandana lying on the seat next to her, figured why not, and tied it around her head to keep the hair off.

She stretched out as well as she could, which was not very well, and cracked her knuckles, cracked them too hard and now her hands hurt. "Oh for the love of, ow, why do I do that".

She checked her watch "Oh for the - Fuuuuck"

She jammed her foot on the accelerator. Taking corners as fast as possible without tipping over.

She made it to the intercept point in time, barely, and had no time to think as she barreled headlong towards the convoy she was intercepting.

She had just enough time before the impact to realize she'd forgotten to strap into the seat before her face was smashed by an airbag and everything went black

* * *

 **Psycho opened** her eyes. Nothing hurt. She wasn't sure if that was good or really bad. Then she noticed her arm facing the wrong direction and suddenly the pain hit. "Ow" she grunted and looked around.

Somehow, she wasn't upside down, which was a good thing, and nothing seemed to be on fire. She kicked the door and it opened easily. Her foot hurt like fuck from doing it and she realized she probably should have just tried opening it first.

She climbed out, and saw the destruction, smiling to herself. Not bad.

The main escort vehicle had been absolutely wrecked. Apparently, the APC managed to go straight through it before colliding with a tree. The bus with the prisoners hadn't been hit, but the spray of orange on the windscreen meant the sniper had been on time at least.

She walked over and found that she must have only have been out for a couple seconds. The people hadn't gotten over the shock and figured to run yet.

She stepped onto the bus "Alright ya feks. I'm here to help ya. Can anyone drive? I would but my arms a bit fucked right now so i could use the extra hand"

A bald man near the front tentatively raised his hand and she dug the device out of her pocket, thankfully the thing was as tough as she was, it looked like a calculator that had vomited up some electronics. She hit the button and the manacles on the man detached, freeing him, and the device grew insanely hot in about half a second, forcing her to drop it.

"Sorry, one-use thing. The rest of you'll be done when we get back to HQ. Just sit tight and enjoy the ride"

She turned to the man "Well, get on the wheel, I'll direct you"

* * *

 **Hiroyo stepped** off the bus, and breathed in the air of HQ. Ah, the glorious smell of burning tires and unwashed masses never gets old. She located what passed for the hospital in the ramshackle construction of crates and wooden logs that made up HQ and approached, halfway there a man stepped out in front of her. An older looking man, she'd guess somewhere in his fifties. Short cut brown hair, and about a week and a half's growth of beard.

"Yeah, what's up?" She asked as he got in her way.

"I'm Central Officer Bradford"

* * *

 **Lihong** ' **Chef' Li**

* * *

 **Lihong stepped** off of set in a huff. SHUT DOWN! Him. THE Lihong Li, shut down after 3 seasons. How dare they. Don't they know who he is!? Unwanted they'd said. "Nobody wants to watch cooking shows, we're going to show another speech from the Speaker"

He'd kick something if he didn't want to ruin his shoes. He checked that he hadn't messed up his hair during his anger. Everything was fine. Wait. No it wasn't. He'd been shut down. What would he do now? He'd have to go back to being a regular chef. He shuddered at the thought. At least he had enough saved for a couple months. Right now, he just needed to get home and check on Ryan.

* * *

 **He arrived** home to find the house empty. Oh, that's right. Ryan was going to one of those clinic things. Hopefully, he'd be back soon.

* * *

 **3 days** of no responses later, Lihong had had enough. First, they cancel his show, then, his son goes to a clinic and doesn't come back. The officials were telling him something about intensive care and he wouldn't be back, ever, but wouldn't go into details.

Do they not know who he is!? No, of course, they know who he is, he shouted it at them enough times, so many times that they threatened to sick one of those troopers with the shock swords on him.

He'd been about to go and kick in the door of that clinic and demand some answers when a pamphlet was slid under his door.

Something about kicking the aliens off their world and getting answers. It said that those clinics were traps to send people off to some experiment, and he believed it. He'd had some bags packed and got in his car to find this 'Resistance'. If he had to fight, so be it. He was good with a cleaver in more ways than one.

* * *

 **Lily Thompson**

* * *

 **Lilly crouched** next to her father, "Are you sure about this?" she asked for the hundredth time, gripping her rifle tight.

"Nope. But someone's gotta do it" he smiled at her "Don't worry Lilly, we've done this before haven't we?"

"And you lost a finger last time"

"Bah, finger shminger, it wasn't the one that pulls the trigger"

"But what if-"

"Lilly. We can sit here and debate what if's all day. Or we can nut up and do it" he laid a hand on her shoulder and looked her dead in the eyes "This is our world, Lilly. Not theirs" he stood up and stretched his back, winked "Afterall, it's better to do the thing" he left it in the air

Lilly sighed "Than live in fear of it"

"There ya go. Now, just keep a good hold of that rifle, and don't go hitting me in the back will ya?" he chuckled, and snuck further through the undergrowth towards where the ADVENT soldiers would be coming through.

* * *

 **Her father** was in her arms. She had a cloth held to his chest, trying to stop the bleeding. There was too much. She didn't know what to do. She needed to get the bullet out, but there was too much blood. She'd lost her med-kit somewhere in that chaos and didn't have anything on her. If she tried to find it... She didn't know if he'd make it.

"Lilly-"

"Shh, don't talk, save your strength"

"We both know that save your strength thing is bullshit. And we both know there's no healing this"

"Don't say that. I can-"

"Lilly. The bullet hit my heart. Not a direct hit, but it hit it. You'd need a team of surgeons, and even then it'd be 50/50. So, you damn well listen to what I have to say here"

She nodded, holding back her tears.

"There's a group. XCOM they call themselves. Came to me a bit ago, asked me to join. Was gonna go see them after this" he reached into his breast pocket and took out what looked like a coin, a small round piece of metal with 'Vigilo Confido' stamped on it, he looked at it "Too bad the pocket was on the wrong side, eh"

He slid the coin into her pocket "You take that, and you head north, directly north of here, about 2 days, there's a small town of ramshackle buildings. Ask for Den Mother, show them that coin"

His head fell back and he coughed "Ah, fuck, whoo, getting woozy. Never forget Lilly. This is our world. Do whatever you can. Get these fucks off our-"

His head slumped and he went limp.

* * *

 **She cried** over him for a long time. She had no idea how long. But eventually she stopped, and she dug a hole and put him in it. No markers, wouldn't want ADVENT getting any ideas. But she made sure to take as best a mental picture of the area as she could. No matter how long it took, she'd get ADVENT off of earth, then she'd come back, and make sure he was buried as he should be, somewhere that heroes go. She knew it was a stupid idea. He would slap her upside the head and tell her not to bother. His bones don't care what hole they lie in, but she owed him that much at least.

She took the coin out of her pocket. A small stamp of iron, stained red with her father's blood. Vigilo Confido. She didn't know Latin, but she figured it probably meant something like "Vigilance, Confidence". Whatever it meant, it meant XCOM. Her father had wanted her to go to them, so she would. She'd make ADVENT pay for what they'd done. "This is our world," she said to the forest and began the long trudge north.

* * *

 **Molly 'Guinea Pig' Sundqvist**

* * *

 **Molly sat** in front of the radar dish. The thing was practically an antique. Hadn't worked in 10 years. But they needed the extra range it'd give, so here she was. She looked through her kit. She felt like she was forgetting something, but everything was there. No doubt she'd come across something and realize what it was, but that'd be a problem for later.  
Right now, she had to figure out how to fix this piece of shit. They'd told her to bring someone else with her for security and an extra hand if she needed it, but other people tended to just get in her way, and she preferred to be alone most of the time anyway.

* * *

 **She stepped** back from the dish. Tried to wipe some of the grease off her face, only succeeded in spreading it around. Of course, she'd forgotten to bring a cloth. She figured it was better than forgetting a tool she needed for it, so she'd just have to deal with it until she got back.  
Not the worst thing that wouldn't get off her face.

She froze. The clank came again. Something on the other side of the radar. She'd not heard any animals around, and ADVENT weren't exactly known for being subtle. A scavenger then. Someone come by to strip it for parts. They weren't very hard to scare off, just wave a weapon and they normally get the message and run off.

She took out her pistol and started moving carefully around the dish.

* * *

 **The Scavenger** was a woman. She currently had her head inside part of the disk but was wearing some kind of armour, probably Kevlar since it looked like bulky fabric, and there was a small robot floating behind her. She crept closer. The stuff looked new, or at least well maintained, so if this was a scavenger, it was recent. Maybe she was with another resistance cell. In which case things could be amicable here… Hopefully.

She crept closer and the woman shifted around in the innards of the radar. Molly froze worried she'd heard her, but the woman stayed in the radar. She gritted her teeth and looked nervously at the robot. She'd not seen anything like it before, it could be looking right at her and she wouldn't know. She looked back to the woman and continued onwards. Damn, she had a nice ass.

She shook her head, not the time for that.

The woman in the radar shifted a bit and spoke, "I'm not here to steal anything, just looking"

Molly froze, and the woman clambered out of the innards of the radar. She seemed to be of Asian descent, with black hair in a bob cut. Molly found herself at a loss for words and had to stop herself from furiously blushing for some reason.

The woman approached and held out a hand to shake "I'm Lilly. Lilly Shen"

* * *

 **Jenna McDermot**

* * *

 **The world** spun around in a pleasing way. Jenna tapped the bottle, trying to get the last few drops out before placing it on the table quite a bit harder than necessary before leaning back in her seat and looking around the grungy dive bar. She couldn't see much, wouldn't be able to even if it was sober, a lot of smoke in the air, but it certainly seemed a lot more pleasant now than when she arrived.

Damn, she was bored.

She'd been bored for 18 years. Since those aliens came in, nobody hired mercs any more, and shooting things was about all she could do. Couple resistance cells had hired her for one thing or another a few times, but nothing that lasted.

A figure walked towards her out of the smoke. Silhouetted by the dim lighting. She looked up at him " Yeah, wuss up" at least, that's what she intended to say, she had no idea how it actually came out, probably just a jumble of vowels.

"You are a soldier of fortune correct" he had a deep voice. He sounded like he'd be good at voicing movie trailers.

"Yea, I work for money. Ya got a job?"

"I have little money, but I can offer you a place to see, alcohol, and something to do beyond sit in a bar and drink with stolen money"

She had to admit, she was off her face right now, but she was a very practiced drunk "Well, that sounds lovely, but I've had people try to fuck me before, and not in the fun way. Imma need some coin up front"

"I cannot promise anything after this, but I do have this" he set a briefcase on the table, and opened it, revealing several stacks, small bills, but still a decent amount.

"Alright, for that, I'll check it out. Who'll I be fighting?"

"ADVENT. You won't need to hold back, and I assure you the people will be, tolerant, of your, habits, in battle"

"Sounds great, let's get going" She managed to not fall over as she got up "Long as you can keep me busy and give me things to shoot, I think we'll get along well"

* * *

 **Savvina Tombras**

* * *

 **She sat** in her room. XCOM was coming to pick her up soon. Best of the best they said, and they'd picked her. A good chance to take the fight to the aliens, probably the best she could get.

She picked up the picture on her table and took a breath. Put the picture in her bag. She'd been told only to pack what was absolutely necessary. A reason to fight certainly qualified to her.

She took the photo back out and looked at it again. Then again, her father had always said that a far better way to mourn is not to be sad that the life ended, but to celebrate what they did in life. She always tried. She felt a slight smile tug at her lips, remembering the silly things they got up to.

Her first day of school when her father had insisted they bike to school, even though it was a heat wave. When he'd done the same with her brothers. When she'd dragged them all to the self-defense classes. How her father had been floored a few seconds in after bragging and the teacher calling him out on it. When Vale had brought his first girlfriend over, and she'd gotten along really well with her father's stupid cooking antics. When Rab came out and none of them even looked up from what they were doing, just nodded said they'd expected for a while.  
When ADVENT kicked in the door and dragged them all out. When they'd been thrown into separate trucks. When she was released, and waited by their house for a week.

She pulled herself out of the memories. No matter how hard she tried to focus on the good parts, the ending always came back. She shoved the picture into her pack and shrugged it on her back. They'd be there soon and she liked to make a good first impression.

* * *

 **Raul 'Soldier' Marquez**

* * *

 **He shouldered** his way through the underbrush. It was the third week of survival training. Never more than 3 hours of sleep, and barely any food, while doing rigorous exercises all day. But only a few had given up, and that had been within the first week. He knew the mindset of everyone there, it was his mindset. He'd not give up until he dropped then. Even then he'd keep going until they told him he could stop, even then push a bit longer just to make sure they meant it.

Survival training was tough as all fuck, but it was supposed to be. He was training to get these aliens off their world. XCOM had fallen, but that didn't mean they stopped fighting.

* * *

 **He smelled** the smoke before he saw anything. He emerged from the trees to find what should have been their main HQ but was now little more than a charred ruin.

He could barely believe it. They'd all been left just a couple miles away and told to find it. It was their final task. He should have come back and been an official soldier, but now. He saw several figured moving through the ruins and took out his binoculars. Aliens. Well-armed, and his only weapon was a survival knife. It could cause some damage, but there were too many for him. Their guns exploded on death, so he couldn't even kill one for its gun.

He waited, keeping hidden for 4 hours, waiting to see if anyone else would show up. Only 3 others made it. He got them together with him. One had taken a bolt of plasma to the leg on the way there, seemed there were aliens patrolling. He could still walk thankfully. They all knew what they had to do. The main HQ was down, but they were alive and could keep up the fight. They were contingency plans, places to set up new bases just in case. They would go there.

* * *

 **Raul stood** at attention. XCOM was back. Setting themselves back up, with a supped-up alien ship. They were recruiting the best of the best, and they'd picked him. Though he was sad to leave behind the cell that he'd spent 5 years setting up, and 15 years fighting for, he knew XCOM was the better way to do it. He could cause much more damage much faster with them than he could with the Resistance. He'd do all he could to ensure XCOM didn't fall again.

* * *

 **Andrea Sandoval**

* * *

 **Andrea sat** at the makeshift bar, absently chewing on a piece of wood, she looked at the man next to her "So, you've got this big elite group of guys to take on the aliens, and you want me?"

"That's right" the man was somehow silhouetted by a light behind him. No matter the angle she looked at him she couldn't see any details other than he was a large man (muscular, not fat) and he'd bald. He also had a very deep, announcer-type voice. "I've been told by everyone in the cell that you're a crack shot"

"I'm a good shot, wouldn't say I'm the best though, Charlie's got that down"

"We already have a sniper. I've also heard you have a very resistance personality"

She raised an eyebrow "What does that mean"

"You're able to crack jokes in even the most intense situation and keep things light"

"Well, you never quite lose the knack for comedy"

"You're just the kind of person we're after, good at fighting, and able to keep up with the stresses of being on call 24/7"

"You got a bar?"

"Naturally, run by Lihong Li. I believe you've heard of him"

"Oh, heck ya. I won't say no to a job with him cooking for me"

"Welcome aboard miss Sandoval"

"Thanks. What did you say your name was by the way?"

"I didn't" he got up and left the bar. Somehow remaining silhouetted the entire way.

"What a strange man. He'll be fun to work with"

"You talking about that dude or Li?" Charlie asked

"Either, both. This is gonna be fun" she looked to the bartender "Guess the next rounds on me"

* * *

 **Darius 'Grandpa' Green**

* * *

 **"Darius Green,** renowned soldier of fortune. Said there's no-one better at infiltration. Working for a resistance cell"

"What's you point Red?" Darius was getting tired of Red. An upstart newcomer, thought he was tough shit, and only cared about the payment. Pretty much how he was at that age.

"You used to be tough man. People'd pay through the nose to get you. Now you work for these Resistance guys, getting pennies and doing near impossible jobs. You could work for ADVENT, you know they pay good"

"I'm not into abducting helpless people from their beds"

"That's now what I heard. I heard back in the day you'd do that for fun"

"Well, people change"

"Bullshit and you know it"

"Maybe. But I'm trying"

He snorted at that "And what's this I hear about you joining XCOM? They paying well?"

"Nope. All they pay is a place to stay and food on the table"

"Holy fuck man, if jobs are that hard to come by, I can find you some"

"I could find paying work if I wanted"

"They why not man. You could be-"

"I know damn well what I could be. I was it for a long time. I'd do whatever paid best and I'd live in luxury. Like you do, boy"

"You could be again, despite your age, old ma-"

Before Red could even finish his though there was a blade pressed to his jugular

"You call me old one more time, I push. Got it"

Red smirked at him "I don't think you got the stones for it"

"I've taken out better men than you for less insult" never-the-less he pulled the knife back. "But I reckon anyone can change if they try. Why not come with me Red. You're insufferable, but you're a damn good soldier. It's why you got the name. It don't pay good, but they get you food, and shelter, and you'll be fighting ADVENT"

"I'm preferring fighting for them. Hey, maybe we'll meet in a fight and we can have this talk again" he stood and started walking out "Don't think I'll take it easy on ya just cuz you're old"

A knife embedded itself in his thigh as he stepped out of the door

"Mother fuck-" The door closed, cutting off his curses

"He does raise some good points" Yellow added, not mentioning Green's knife throw "When did you start doing jobs gratis?"

"When I reckoned, I've taken enough good out of the world. It's too late to try adding some good to it, so I'll settle with taking some bad out of it, maybe I'll be able to even things out when I get to judgment"

"You really believe in that shit?"

"Never used to. But you get to the age where you know it aint to far away, you start wondering what if. Anyway. You can have this round on me. You're a good man Yellow. I hope we don't end up fighting"

"I reckon if I see you coming, I'll go the other way"

"If I do my job right, you won't see me coming in time to run"

"Good point. Reckon I'll stay out of ADVENT's books then"

"I can't convince you to come with me can i"

"I'm for not dying. I'll not go with ADVENT since I know you're against them and I don't wanna cross you, but ADVENT is not someone you wanna cross. I wish you luck, but I stay out of politics"

"Luck then, Yellow"

"Luck, Green"

* * *

 **Tania Ferreira**

* * *

 **"You know** this clinic is my only chance Tan" He'd said. He'd said it many times. And she knew it was true. Cystic Fibrosis is not something you just get over. His doctors had given him 2 years, 5 if he was really lucky, this clinic was offering a full recovery. She didn't trust it, but Ross had always been a gambler, and she'd never been able to change his mind.

"Just, be careful. I don't trust these aliens"

He smiled "Neither do I. But you gotta take a chance every now and then. I'll be back tomorrow. Then we can get my hockey stuff back out eh"

* * *

 **2 weeks** later, his name had appeared on the sedition roll. A known traitor put down. She knew it was bullshit. Ross hadn't been one to give 2 shits who was in charge. He certainly wasn't about to fight over who collected the taxes.

She sat at the desk with his old Hockey mask. She knew what she had to do. She'd always heard of a group of Resistance fighters somewhere out in the wild. She'd find them, make them accept her, and she'd take the fight to ADVENT. She added her art supplied to her pack. And she'd not sacrifice who she was to do it.

* * *

 **Hunter 'Lance' Daniels**

* * *

 **He threw** the first bottle. He was the one that started the riot. And damn it felt good. Right up until the shock blade hit him in the face.

* * *

 **Hunter came** to handcuffed and in a cell. Things hadn't gone as planned.

* * *

 **Several weeks** later, he was out and making some Molotov's. His next bottle would be more destructive

* * *

 **Wait. How'd** he get in the cell this time?

* * *

 **This time** he took a revolver from his old man

* * *

 **The Stunnie** had a gun too… Fuck!

* * *

 **And, the** Stunnie was being shot. And now he's passing out from that jab it got in earlier. And now he's being carried. Ah! Fuck! He was just stabbed in the leg. Oh, that's better. Now he feels like he needs to jump off some walls. Wait, who was it that was carrying him? He looked up as she removed the blood-stained hockey mask. "I'm Tania"

"Uh, I'm, LANCE" he noticed a Lancer running up behind her, pulled the gun out of her holster, and shot it 3 times in the chest before it went down.

Tania laughed "Well, Lance. You seem to be just what we're looking for"

* * *

 **Dancing Fox 'Bumblebee'**

* * *

 **She sat** in her meditation chamber, legs crossed, eyes closed, a light purple glow surrounding her. She opened her eyes, her body covered in a thin film of sweat despite the cool air. The same vision. She got it every now and then.

Every Psionic had an ability unique to them. So it was written. Geist himself could manipulate the psionic energies of others, preventing them from using their abilities, or enhancing them. It was said the first Psionic could see through even the weakest psionic energies, and see through solid objects at will.

Dancing Fox had the gift of foresight. She couldn't always control it, and when she did it lacked detail. But there were several events she had predicted and had grown to trust her visions. This one she'd had many times.

Her fate, it seemed was decided. She had come to accept it years ago. She would die when it was her time. She knew from experience there was no changing the vision. Everything you attempt to halt it only causes it to happen. No matter what she did, it would come to pass as she saw it. So, instead, she'd do what she could to bring it to pass.

XCOM would come, and she would go with them, as a liaison to the Templars, and as a soldier. And she would help bring an end to ADVENT, and she would die. Either before or after victory she couldn't tell. But she would die, and she would face it with a smile.

There was a knock at her door, and the two XCOM representatives came into her room. She placed her helmet on. So, it begins.


End file.
